Edgar Cage’s name is synonymous with Together Baton Rouge. He has been many things over the course of his long tenure with the organization—co-chair of numerous action teams, recruitment coordinator, primary liaison to the Louisiana State Legislature, and a valued mentor to countless of his fellow leaders. A native of Baton Rouge, he attended Southern University, where he majored in business management with a minor in economics. Following a period of service in the Army, he enjoyed a successful career with Blue Cross Blue Shield in Louisiana and California. Following his retirement in 2009, he began lending his services to the IAF Sponsoring Committee that would go on to form Together Baton Rouge. In his narrative, Edgar reflects on growing up during segregation, the work ethic that has helped me achieve success in all his endeavors, and the things he has learned from being a key leader in a grassroots citizen's organization. 

My family and community gave me a good, strong foundation to understand and to know that nobody was better than me, nor was I better than anybody else. And if I wanted something in life, that I had to work for it.

It was an education and an eye-opening experience growing up in Baton Rouge. I grew up in the era of Jim Crow, where it was separate but equal. And, you know, being a native of Baton Rouge and not experiencing anything else, this is all I knew and all I saw. I did feel and realized that it wasn't right, but it was what we had to deal with. And I was fortunate to be raised in a household with both parents, my mother and father. And they worked very hard. They did not have great education. But my mother did go back to school and got her GED and then got a degree from Southern nutrition and she became a cafeteria manager at the school. But they knew the importance of education and they instilled in us—when I say us, all the kids, and I'm one of eight siblings and I'm next to the baby. But they instilled in us the importance of education and they said, “Get this education and you don't have to depend on anybody to give you anything. You can earn it yourself. And that's the best way to be, to be independent.” And everything that I did, I wanted to be independent.

Born in Jackson, Louisiana, Loyace Gant spent a large part of her childhood on her grandparents' farm in a close-knit rural community. One of four sisters raised by a single mother, Ms. Gant learned from a very early age to be self-sufficient. Following the example set by her mother, she was brought up to have the courage to seize roles and powers traditionally reserved for men. When she settled down with her family in Baton Rouge, she enjoyed a long and successful career with South Central Bell telecommunications, becoming one of the first women to work outside as an installer. Along with her neighbor, Ms. Dorothy Thomas, Ms. Gant first became involved in TBR as part of the fight to reopen the Blue Grass Bridge leading into their subdivision. Since that time, she has continued to proudly represent North Forrest Heights Subdivision as core leader in our organization. Exhibiting a tireless devotion to her community over the years, she has helped to lead a variety of canvassing campaigns and always ensures that her neighbors are up-to-speed on TBR happenings. 

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I think all kids should learn to stay in the country. We didn't have toys, but you were in the country, you could always have fun with something. We learned how to braid hair by grass in the yard. In the country, you had like little chunks of grass and that's how we learned to braid, my grandmother showed us how to do that.

I was born in Jackson, LA. And my parents separated. I don't even remember living with my dad. My mom got custody of us, she was working it at the mental hospital in Jackson and we were too small to live by ourselves, so our grandmother took us and I stayed with my grandmother up until about 8th grade. My grandparents gardened a lot. They were farmers, and when we were real small, they would take us to wherever they were working, but we would sit up under the shade tree. My grandmother would say, "Y'all are too young to do that." Of course, they didn't want us to cut all they vegetables up either, y'know. And one year she told us, she said, "This row right here, this is for you girls." And we couldn't understand what was that she was planting for us, and it came up and it grew like corn. And we looked along it and I said, "What's she puttin corn down there for?" She had popcorn. She had made popcorn.

Reverend Jesse Bilberry served for # years as pastor of Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church before retiring in 2019 at the age of 89. The oldest of ten children born in rural Union Parish, he followed in his father's footsteps by attending Southern University then working as a principal and a pastor. Prior to his career in the ministry, Rev. Bilberry served as a much-beloved Principal of Tensas Rosenwald High School and then as an administrator at Southern University. Considered by his parishioners as "more of a teacher than a preacher", Reverend Bilberry has put lessons on the family at the center of his ministry. The Family Life Center that was constructed at Mt. Pilgrim during his time as pastor was an important early meeting place where hundreds of TBR leaders joined together for celebrations and public actions.

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So, I used to drive there, listen to him preach, and I would come back home and preach to my brothers and sisters… We had a big trunk and I used to get up on that trunk and my sisters and brothers would sit around and I would preach to them.

I was born and reared in Union Parish. About twenty-nine miles North of Monroe, Louisiana. I was born in a place called Marion RFD. It was a small, rural parish and the major occupation was truck farming and harvesting pulp wood. We lived in two different towns. Our permanent home was in Farmerville.  My daddy was a principal in Downsville for three years.  They had a principal’s home there. So, for three years we lived in Downsville during the school session and Farmerville when school was not in session.

My father... My father was a hero... but I didn't think he was a hero *laughs* early on. But he was a family man. He had ten children. I was the oldest of ten. My mother never worked a day outside of the home. He was a hustler. He farmed part-time, and then he taught school. I remember sometimes he would hire somebody to take him where he needed to go and allow us to use the car. But you better take care of it. You misuse it, you get stranded, whooh boy. He was a left-hand man, we called him a southpaw, and he was firm, very firm.  He demanded that we live obedient lives, demanded that we respect our mother. He would do whatever he could for us, but he demanded that we just be obedient. And you tell him the truth. Now you talking about being in trouble if you didn't tell him the truth about something.

Julie Hoffman is a longtime member of Beth Shalom Synagogue. Her parents, Paula and Harvey, were major leaders in the Baton Rouge community, and Julie has carried on in their footsteps. She’s served in various leadership roles at the synagogue over the years and, along with her husband, Ara Rubyan, has continued the annual Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival that her parents started in 2007. After beginning to attend Leader’s Luncheons in 2016, Julie felt immediately familiar with the TBR community and began working with Edgar Cage to bring her synagogue on as an institutional member. As a TBR leader, her organizing efforts have been focused primarily on the Criminal Justice Action Team. Looking back on the lives of grandparents who fled Europe during the Holocaust, Julie cares deeply about fighting prejudice and upholding the civil rights of persecuted groups.

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My grandfather left Germany in 1933 because he was running away from home. My grandmother was just supposed to be on a summer trip, but at the end of the summer her parents said, "don't come back."

Almost all of my grandparents were immigrants who came to this country for a better life, and for freedom. Patriotism has taken on different meanings now, but for my grandparents, it was to get away from Cossacks and Nazis.

My mother's parents were more Americanized, because her father came here from Poland as a baby. And her mother was actually the one grandparent I had who was born in this country, though her parents were from the Romania/Bessarabia/Ukraine area. They settled in New Orleans, which is where my mother grew up.

My paternal grandfather was from Germany, and my paternal grandmother was from Lithuania. Both of them left their respective home countries before the Holocaust. My grandfather left Germany in 1933 because he was running away from home, my grandmother was just supposed to be on a summer trip, but at the end of the summer her parents said, don't come back. It was too dangerous. They ended up in Palestine at the same time, and that's where they met. Later, they came to this country via Cuba to Houston, and that's where they stayed.

MiJa Thompson has dedicated her life to serving others. She is a committed church leader, retired nurse, and mother of four. MiJa was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1952, not too long after the Korean War. She was adopted by a Black G.I. and his mother, and brought to America when she was four years old. She moved to Baton Rouge in 1979, and got her RN diploma from the Our Lady of the Lake School of Nursing. While working as a staff nurse at the Lake, in 1996, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in nursing from Loyola University. She retired from Our Lady of the Lake in 2015 after 35 years of service. MiJa is an elder of the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, which she has attended for 30 years.

I Remember... 

I have glimpses of places, and what was going on at the time, ya know.

I remember being near a hut, or a little house.

I remember I had come out on the back stoop and an older woman was out there. 

I remember she had a big cauldron of something cookin. 

It coulda been laundry. It coulda been soup. 

I dunno.  

I remember lookin out into the field, and there was a train.

I remember the train cars.

I remember seeing people comin out of the boxcars of the train as though they had slept there all night. 

It was 1956.  

It was after the war- the Korean "conflict" (they didn't call it a war). 

I remember that. 

I remember near the little hut there was a magazine stand.  

It was just one counter with stuff all around that you could buy.  

It's funny how these little glimpses are so clear, ya know, the details are not there, 

But I remember.  

I remember squatin down- me and the other kids, and we had sticks, 

And we had grasshoppers stuck on the end of the sticks.

I remember there was a little fire in the middle, 

And we were fryin our grasshoppers. 

I remember that. 

I remember a bridge. 

I remember walkin across the bridge with someone. It was probably with my mother.

I remember she was kinda stumblin- she wasn't doin well.  

She coulda been drinkin. She coulda been cryin, I dunno.

I remember the night my mother took me to the base to give me over to my dad.

I remember the plane ride to America.

I was only four years old, but I remember…