During the lunch break of the 40th and final day of Georgia’s legislative session, Georgia State Representative Roger Bruce was inside the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus offices taking pictures with their college interns. Bruce, a Democrat from South Fulton, has served in the Georgia House of Representatives since 2003. On Thursday March 28th at 11:59 PM, Bruce will retire from public service with immediate effect.
Bruce, a native of Harlem, New York, was inspired to get into public service after listening to a young man speak about what the possibilities could be in a post Civil Rights-movement world. The speaker offered him an internship at the Jackson, Patterson, Parks and Franklin Law Firm. The ‘Jackson’ in the law firm was a guy named Maynard.
“And when he decided to run for mayor, I wanted to get involved and I became the one that organizes on the college campuses to get the students pumped up to go and vote for me to be the first African-American mayor. I felt like I was part of history by doing that, and by getting others to understand that the process was through that time, you know, the way to change things was through the political process.”
Bruce would stay in Atlanta and enroll in Morehouse College. Upon graduation, he would work in Macon, which was worse than it is today. Upon arrival, he was going to be promoted into management positions. However, the company could not promote any white people without promoting Black people first. When he realized what was going on, Bruce spoke truth to power.
“I really appreciate all of that stuff that you just said,” recalled Bruce. “And I know I haven’t been here long enough to be able to demonstrate all of that stuff. And I know this is about complying with the Civil Rights Act. And you can’t promote any of these people in this room until I get promoted; in order to comply. I get that.
But let’s be clear: all those things that you said that I’ve done, I can do…
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