Growing up Black in MS, this Coast mayor learned he had to work harder for success

When Billy Knight Sr. walks into a room, everyone takes notice.

The mayor of Moss Point is tall, slender and usually wearing a suit with a tie and matching pocket square. As a Black man, he realizes he has to work harder to earn respect. That’s just the way it is.

“I walk in a room leading,” he said during a recent interview in this office. “I walk in there with confidence.”

At 83, Knight is determined to see the once-neglected Mississippi Coast city shine. Halfway through his first term as mayor, he has guided the River City’s plans and secured money for waterfront redevelopment, a new commercial corridor and utility upgrades, with project plans displayed on easels in his office and the hallways of City Hall.

Knight not only moves with confidence, he gathers allies as he goes. His leadership skills are crucial in a city where the population has shrunk over the past 12 years and more than 21% of residents live in poverty. The latest blow was a June 19 tornado that tore through downtown and surrounding neighborhoods, destroying or heavily damaging homes, churches, schools and businesses.

For the city’s recovery, Knight is tapping into a long list of contacts gathered over decades in public and community service. The adversity he faced as a Black person in segregated Mississippi motivated him to be better, not bitter.

“It’s always been that I needed to set an example,” Knight said.

Realities of racism in Mississippi

Knight grew up in Hattiesburg, the youngest of 11 children born to Roscoe and Ruth Knight. His father maintained lawns for rich white families, while his mother cleaned their houses and ironed their clothes. Roscoe and Ruth Knight never owned a car.

On weekends, Roscoe Knight was told, not asked, what time he would be picked up to work at one of his clients’ summer homes.

His mother doted on her youngest child. She always made sure he had nice clothes to wear.

Billy Knight’s earliest recollection of being discriminated against came when he was in elementary school. He was walking downtown with his mother when they saw a white couple approaching from the opposite direction.

It had been raining. His mom bumped him with her hip, indicating he should step off the sidewalk into the water rushing beside the curb, which he did. She had to clean up his shoes when they got home. He asked why she had made him move.

“That’s the way it is,” she said.

He later realized that bumping into the white people on a sidewalk could have cost his parents their jobs, or worse.

In college, Knight worked summers as a janitor at Fine Brothers-Matison department store in Hattiesburg. By his junior year, he was allowed to sell merchandise, mainly shoes, but only to Black customers. He got to dress up for work in suits that had been returned or otherwise rejected.

His mother helped, too, ironing shirts for the owner so she could buy him clothes. “She would spend her last dime to make me look good,” Knight said, “even though she couldn’t afford it.”

Black people could shop at the department store back then, he said, but they weren’t allowed to try on the clothes or hats.

He didn’t question his parents about racism. He didn’t want to embarrass them.

“They didn’t talk about it,” Knight said. “That was a way of life. Everybody was in the same situation. That’s the way it was.”

Football hones mayor’s leadership skills

Billy Knight’s first lessons in leadership came through football. He was starting his sophomore year in high school when the coach, also his algebra teacher, decided Knight should switch to quarterback. Knight was fast, had good hands and possessed the skills to lead the football team, his coach said.

The coach saw that Knight worked with his English teacher on communication skills. Knight began to see the connection between his new position and leadership.

“It just put me in that lane,” Knight said.

After graduation, he attended Mississippi Valley State University, then the all-Black Mississippi Valley Vocational College, on a football scholarship. He was the first family member to attend college. The whole family, including his older brothers and sisters, pitched in to help with his expenses.

Long-distance phone calls were too expensive, so his family bought him stamps. He stayed in touch by writing letters to his parents and siblings, which sharpened his writing skills.

He admits he was a little arrogant. After his freshman year, he announced in a team meeting, with seven quarterbacks present, that he would quarterback the team the next year. And he was named quarterback as a sophomore.

Future wife Lois Knight, whom he met at MVSU, prefers to say he was “very confident.”

“He just has a confidence about him,” she said. “We always said he was a born leader.”

The two were dating other people when they met, but her boyfriend moved to another state. She and Knight got to know one another over time. They were together by their junior or senior year. While he was quarterback, she was head cheerleader.

They will celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary on July 18.

Political races on the Mississippi Coast

The Knights both found work on the Coast as educators.

Billy Knight taught at Nichols Elementary in Biloxi, then at Carver High School in Pascagoula, where he also served as basketball coach and assistant football coach.

The couple settled in 1964 in Moss Point, where they raised a son, Billy Knight Jr., now an application developer and business systems analyst for the state.

While Lois Knight retired as a school principal, Billy Knight has worked in several fields and owned more than one business.

In 1974, he left a job at Ingalls Shipbuilding, where he had risen to a supervisor’s position, to open Jackson County’s first Black-owned men’s clothing store, BK’s Mens Shop. The business combined his love for clothes, his desire to be his own boss and the responsibility he felt from a young age to set an example in the Black community.

He has on countless occasions lectured young Black men about being good role models for themselves and their families, said his close friend Clarence DuBose, owner of Medi-Mart Pharmacy in Moss Point.

Knight’s work as director of the Jackson County Civic Action Committee Inc. brought real change to the community. He was able to expand and start new programs that served low-income residents, even opening a shelter for runaway teens. When he started the job in 1984, he had six employees. When he resigned in 1997, the agency employed more than 200 people.

Knight resigned because he ran for mayor for the first time in 1997. He was puzzled when a group of ministers approached him and asked him to run. Knight said he was “not a political person” and asked the preachers, “Why would you want me to do that?”

As mayor, they said, he could help all the city’s residents. Knight lost his first race, but tried again in 2017. He was defeated the second time in the Democratic primary by Mario King, a young native of the city.

The second defeat crushed Knight.

“I said, ‘Moss Point does not want real leadership,’ “ Knight recalled.

He burned or threw away all his campaign material. A workaholic, Knight confined his activities to his home and the church to which he and his wife are devoted, St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Pascagoula.

As for Mario King, he pleaded guilty months before his term as mayor ended to wire fraud and conspiracy charges. As part of the plea, he resigned the office.

Knight had no plans to run again for mayor until he ran into a former student he had coached in football. The former student asked Knight if he planned to try again for the office.

“No, I’m through with that,” Knight said.

The man said he was disappointed. Knight wanted to know why. “As our coach, you told us, ‘Never give up.’ You get knocked down twice, and you quit,” his former student said.

Knight paid the cashier and told the former student, “I’ll see you later.” Remembering the exchange recently, Knight said, “I didn’t know what else to tell him.”

Knight thought long and hard about what the former student had said. As always, he considered the example he was setting. And he decided he would run for mayor a third time.

Knight went all in, DuBose said, using his formidable organizational skills to map out the campaign and tapping contacts who could help.

He held community meetings, went door-to-door and raised money for the race. “He was laser-focused on this third run,” DuBose said.

“People were able to see that youth and immaturity were not what was best for Moss Point. I think people were looking for somebody they could anchor their trust in.”

Billy Knight faces challenges after election

Knight wasted no time acting on his campaign promises. He wanted to clean up the city to boost its image. City crews now mow the grass around Interstate 10, the main entrance to Moss Point, rather than waiting on state crews that get to the job less often.

If Knight sees trash on the ground, he picks it up.

“We’ve got to be the first example out there,” he said. “If this place (City Hall) is dirty, I’ll be the first one to pick up a broom and a mop.”

Lois Knight started tending the flower beds around the stately two-story City Hall, getting help from volunteers. She also set up a Beautification Committee that selects a lawn of the month in each ward.

To address crime, Knight initiated community policing, directing the Police Department to have officers walk the streets, knock on doors and visit residents. One lady appreciated such a visit enough to bring cookies to a Board of Aldermen meeting a few months back.

Development has been a big challenge. Moss Point sits on the banks of the Escatawpa River and is known as the River City. Yet the public waterfront was mostly void of activity when he took office. Knight has encouraged more events on the waterfront and has a redevelopment plan for the area just across from City Hall, where an aging red brick community center will be bulldozed. The mayor is hoping to attract retail development.

He’s also raised millions from the state Legislature to build out a commercial corridor along Interstate 10. During legislative sessions, he can be seen roaming the halls of the state Capitol, dapper as always in one of his suits, to visit with the legislators. He always takes Paige Roberts with him. The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce director is experienced in public relations and marketing.

“Billy Knight is very good at accepting help,” Roberts said. “When someone says, ‘I can help you,’ he says, ‘How?’ ”

Knight puts it a different way: “My success has been surrounding myself with people who know more than I know. I don’t have an ego problem.”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is one of those people. On one trip to Jackson earlier this year, Knight met with Hosemann, who said as they were wrapping up that he had to go get his ashes for Ash Wednesday. Knight invited himself along. It was the beginning of a friendship that brought Hosemann to Moss Point after the recent tornado.

Hosemann has been working to expedite disaster relief for the city. “I have a great deal of personal respect for him,” Hosemann said. “He’s a genuinely good person. . . .

“If I can help my friend Mayor Knight, I’m going to do that.”

Knight was in charge of reconstruction of his church, St. Peter’s, after Hurricane Katrina. He was at the church so much that he was gifted a hard hat. He understands the frustrations and hard work ahead.

“When I recognized we had been struck by a tornado,” DuBose said, “I thought, ‘Billy Knight can handle this.’ “

Knight’s age makes him more conscious of time passing. He wants to do as much as he can, while he can, to improve the city he loves.

“I have to push,” Knight has told DuBose. “I have to push.”