Freedom Rider Hank Thomas to receive 365Black Awards during Essence

29th June 2011   ·   0 Comments

Continuing its long-standing support and connection to the African-American community, McDon­ald’s® will recognize a distinguished list of five prominent African Americans who influence and inspire greatness through outstanding community service at the 2011 365Black® Awards. This year’s 365Black Awards will be co-hosted by nationally syndicated radio personality Tom Joyner and Academy Award® nominated actress Angela Bassett and will be held Friday, July 1, 2011, at 12:30 p.m. in New Orleans, La., at the start of the Essence Music Festival weekend.

The 2011 365Black Awards honorees are multiplatinum recording artist Mary J. Blige, Oscar-nominated and Grammy Award-winning actress Ruby Dee, Radio One Network founder Cathy Hughes, NAACP president and CEO Ben­ja­min Jealous, and civil rights acti­vist and McDonald’s own­er/op­erator Henry “Hank” Thomas.

This year’s honorees join an elite group of past award recipients, including Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Marian Wright Edelman, Essence magazine president Michelle Ebanks, educator Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien and NBA legend Alonzo Mourning. Awards show co-host Tom Joyner was one of the first recipients of the 365Black Awards, which exemp­lify outstanding community service.

“Our 365Black Awards honorees define true leadership in our community, from Ruby Dee’s trailblazing career as an actress to the civil rights crusades led by Hank Thomas; from the media empire created by Cathy Hughes to the leadership that Benjamin Jealous brings to the NAACP, our honorees inspire all Americans to give back in some unique way,” said Neil Golden, Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald’s USA.

The Louisiana Weekly, in honor of the Freedom Riders 50th Anniv­ersary, interviewed honoree Henry Thomas, one of four surviving members of the 13 original “Freedom Riders,” the heroic civil rights activists who traveled throughout the South on Grey­hound buses in 1961, protesting segregated facilities at bus stations along the way.

Today, Thomas is vice president of the Hayon, Inc. Group, which owns and operates three McDon­ald’s Restaurants in the Atlanta area. Mr. Thomas serves on the Board of Trustees of Morehouse Medical School (Atlanta) and Talladega College (Talladega, AL). He has established scholarship funds at the Piney Woods Boarding School, Howard University and Morehouse School of Medicine. He is also a Vietnam War veteran, having received a Purple Heart, a life member of the NAACP, an active fundraiser for the UNCF and a retired member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. In 2011, Hank was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.

Thomas told The Louisiana Weekly that less than two years after he was released from jail in Jackson, Miss., for participating in the Freedom Rides, he was drafted and sent to fight in the Vietnam War. He served as a medic during his tour of duty and lost an arm. As a result, he spent five and a half months recuperating in Walter Reed Army Hospital.

“That’s part of the cruel irony: While I got sent to prison for trying to ride in the front of a bus — like so many other Black men including my grandfather and father — I was asked by the government to put on a uniform, pick up a rifle and go defend those same freedoms for other people in other lands,” Thomas told The Louisiana Weekly. “It’s one cruel irony but that’s been the bane of Black men ever since we’ve been in this country. I just followed in their footsteps and carried the double load that so many other Black men had to carry.”

Thomas secured a job at McDon­ald’s in 1966, earning $1.30 an hour. “I was a one-armed, left-handed bun layer,” he told The Louisiana Weekly. “That was top pay at the time, and probably within about three weeks I got a five cents raise. I was a good employee; they got a good deal with me. I was making $1.35 an hour while the rest of the crew was making $1.30 an hour. Back in those days, you toasted the buns on the grill, so that was my first job at McDonald’s.”

Twenty years later, Thomas made the liberating leap from employee to entrepreneur.

“I went from making $1.30 an hour to owning several McDon­ald’s restaurants,” Thomas added. “I guess you could say that’s called moving up the ladder.”

Thomas says he and his wife have had a very good career with McDonald’s. McDonalds’s is a family affair for the Thomas, who has a brother-in-law and sister-in-law contributing in managerial and supervisory roles.

“I was told that the idea of being in business has been something that has been a part of my family for a very long time,” Thomas told The Louisiana Weekly. “I’m the one that’s come along and has had the opportunities, but that entrepreneurial spirit has been there for a long time.

“I had a great aunt who was a modern-day banker,” he continued. “She was the banker for the community, lending people money until they got paid.

“My story is really not that unique. The difference between us today as Black folks is that we don’t have as many obstacles in front of us as our forefathers did. …When you see a Black businessman or businesswoman who had a business back in the 1920s, ‘30s or ‘40s, you tip your hat to them. They had to overcome some unbelievable obstacles. Banks would not lend them money, so their starting capital had to come from their savings, denying themselves and an unquenchable thirst to be in business and be their own boss. They had to climb the mountain with an extra 100 pounds on their backs. They are the real heroes when we talk about Black businessmen and businesswomen. We just come along and walk along the road that they’ve paved for us.”

The Louisiana Weekly asked Mr. Thomas what he would say to young people today who seem less motivated to succeed than previous generations of Black people.

Thomas said Jews have done a better job “of constantly reminding and educating their young people about their past.

“They do it in the manner of saying, ‘These were the difficulties that we encountered, but we triumphed.’ The difference with us is that there has been this sense of shame about slavery, and I understand that. You don’t want to talk about it. There has been this shame about having to acquiesce to the period of Jim Crow or the American apartheid system. Not talking about it is a mistake. We don’t (need to) talk about it in terms of the suffering that we endured, but we (need to) talk about it in terms of how we overcame and defeated the system.”

Thomas says there’s no need for those who were not actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement to be ashamed of their past. “Within the Civil Rights Movement, only a tiny fraction of Black folks were involved in civil rights,” Thomas said. “The rest just had to get along as best they could. To a certain extent, you could say that they’ve been people who just accommodated themselves to the system. They don’t have to be ashamed of that because that’s just the way it has been throughout history. Anywhere people have been oppressed, it has only been a small percentage of the people who rise up and fight that oppression. Then when the system is about to tumble, other people come along because that’s just the way it is.

“You gotta have a group of fools — and I consider myself a part of that group of fools who don’t know what’s good for them and throw caution to the wind and are willing to sacrifice everything for their principles,” Thomas added. “There’s no need for people to be ashamed for what we had to endure. We should emphasize the fact that we triumphed and chan­ged the country, and we did.”

Thomas, chaired the committee charged with celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides, says the late-May event in Jackson, Miss., was “a wonderful occasion.

“We had a total of 95 Freedom Riders to come back to Missis­sippi,” he continued. “The total number of people who participated as Freedom Riders was 425 but at last count about 100 had passed on.”

The Jackson, Miss., gathering came on the heels of a commemorative event spearheaded by Oprah Winfrey three weeks earlier. Tho­mas says he was moved by the changes in Jackson 50 years later. The mayor of Jackson is Black, the chief of police is a Black woman, there are two Blacks on Mis­sissippi’s Supreme Court, the head of the highway patrol is a Black man and the head of the prison system is a Black man.

“The state of Mississippi, in many respects, has made more progress in terms of social/racial relationships and the positions of Blacks than any other Southern states and more than many states in this country,” Thomas told The Louisiana Weekly. “I’ve said before that I would have more apprehension about being stopped by a white police officer in New York City than I would by a white police officer in Jackson, Mississippi… I am just more comfortable in a small town in Mississippi than I am in a small town in upstate New York. That’s not an exaggeration. Those are just the facts of life.”

Henry Thomas says he is moved by being honored with a McDon­ald’s 365Black Award in 2011.

“I’m very proud and certainly when I look at the company I am in, I’m extremely proud of it,” Thomas told The Louisiana Weekly. “It is a prestigious award, one that recognizes the fact that I am not only a McDonald’s owner/operator but also the fact that this is the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. It was the Freedom Rides — along with the sit-ins — that was the catalyst for all of the things that have happened with reference to civil rights and Black advancement since then.

“It was the Freedom Rides and all of the attention they garnered nationally and internationally that has brought about all of these changes. I see it more as an honor, celebration and recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. For that, I am extremely proud to have been a foot soldier in the Civil Rights Movement.”

Additional reporting by Louisiana Weekly editor Edmund W. Lewis.

This article originally published in the June 27, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.