Black History Month 2022: Joe Evans, an everlasting advocate for education

The origins of Black History Month

As a Harvard-trained historian, Carter G. Woodson, like W. E. B. Du Bois before him, believed that truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice. According to an article in the Library of Congress written by Howard University history professor Daryl Scott, Woodson’s hopes to raise awareness of African American’s contributions to civilization was realized when he and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” That year, 50 years after the first celebration, the association held the first Black History Month.

Each week during Black History Month, The Examiner highlights and honors a black person of importance to the community of Southeast Texas. From business owners and administrators to doctors, lawyers and government officials, Southeast Texas is brimming with black leaders and role models.

This week, The Examiner is featuring a perpetual public servant and recently elected Beaumont Independent School District (BISD) trustee, who hopes his hands-on, fatherly approach will help mold productive, successful members of the Southeast Texas community.

Joe Evans, an everlasting advocate for education 

BISD Trustee and Beaumont Occupational Services General Manager Joe Evans’ path to success and prominence in Southeast Texas was paved by a stalwart reverence for education instilled in him by his parents. Raised outside Orlando, Florida, by a mother who picked cotton before rising to become vice president of a bank and a father who owned a successful business after the 8th grade, Evans said he was raised in a rough area, but education provided a ladder into prominence.

“They always supported me in my community and public endeavors,” Evans explained. “They kinda built that into me – to serve and focus on education.

“My mom picked cotton (for a living), but made it all the way from that to having two master’s degrees. She overcame a lot to become the vice president of a bank – which was a huge accomplishment considering where she came from. Same with my dad. He only had an 8th grade education, but is a business owner to this day.”

Evans’ trek to Southeast Texas took him to Tallahassee for college, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history education in 2001 from Florida A&M University, a historically black college.

“I only spent about a year in the classroom, then I left for California to go work in the lab business with my father-in-law. That was very short-lived, too,” Evans explained. So, in 2006, Evans moved to Beaumont, where his late wife Misty’s family lived.

Evans said his first Southeast Texas venture was so short lived because, although lucrative, it “just wasn’t him.”

“It was logistics and heavy-hauling equipment in and out of the refineries,” he said. “Driving just wasn’t the perfect fit. I had three young kids, and it was just a strain on us. It wasn’t me, you know? I wasn’t in the community; I wasn’t doing something that was really gratifying; I wasn’t out in the community touching people. So, that kinda broke down that business.”

Then, he said the “perfect storm” formed when his current employer approached Evans join him at Beaumont Occupational Services – a company that offers a range of screening and testing services for employees, families and courts. Already familiar with that line of work after working in California, Evans took on the role of general manager.

When Evans felt secure in his position after five years, he decided it was time to act on another pillar of his parents’ rearing: serving the community.

A perpetual public servant

Before being elected as BISD’s District 1 trustee in 2021 – a position he actually sought numerous times before – Evans garnered experience serving on several humanitarian boards including the Garth House-Mickey Mehaffy Children’s Advocacy Program Board of Directors, Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Board of Directors. He’s also a partner advocate for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA) and was appointed by Governor Greg Abbott as council member on the Texas Council on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.

“I tried to get on the school board like five times before I got elected,” he explained. Right before his late wife Misty got sick, “I was filing to run again when they set it up for the first new elected board to come back after the board of managers. She got sick, so I had to withdraw from that race.”

His wife eventually passed from a rare liver disease in 2017, but Evans’ three daughters provided him with the resiliency he needed to remain on his path of public service. So, he ran again and won in 2021.

“My goal on the school board is to improve literacy throughout our community, in the hopes that by improving literacy we can improve some of the negative behaviors that we’re seeing out of our youth,” he explained. “And also to erase some of the poverty that we’re seeing. I believe that we can break a lot of cycles if we just improve literacy and get people to focus on the importance of education. My goal is to make sure that by the time I’m done, whenever that is, all of our students are reading at or above grade level. And I think that is going to translate to success throughout our community.

“Then, of course, we look at the growth of our city and the negative stigma that’s been attached to the poor view of the school board. That’s something else I want to work really hard to do – to change the perception of our school board in our community and let people know that we are working hard to right those wrongs that were done in the past.”

One of Evans’ primary focuses in his BISD endeavor is to promote mentorships in the school district, illustrating the powerful influences he benefited from as a kid and trying to emulate that for another generation.

“One of the things I’m big on is our mentors,” he said. “We have a program called IEA, or Inspire, Encourage, Achieve. I’m out at the detention center daily trying to read to those young men and encourage them to turn their lives around. I’m trying to get them to understand that just because they made mistakes doesn’t mean they have to stay in those positions. They can come back from that defeat and, ultimately, become productive, successful members of society.

“I try to stay on the campuses as much as I can and just try to be a positive male influence for males who don’t have positive male influences in their lives. I’m looking at situations where there are no dads, no brothers, no uncles, there’s no grandpa’s – there’s just no positive male role models. So, I just try to be that to the young men in our community. That’s something that’s deeply personal to me, to try and curtail some of the violence and gang activity we see in our community through mentoring and outreach.”

Evans said his parents had to fight hard to keep him away from the social pitfalls that surrounded him growing up in a rough area. Their efforts didn’t always work, Evans explained, as he “got into some things I shouldn’t have gotten into.”

“So, that’s why my heart goes out to these kids; I wasn’t always the best kid,” he said. “I understand what it’s like to make some of those mistakes as a juvenile. But, I also understand that if you don’t correct those mistakes they can come back to haunt you. I had friends and family who didn’t correct their behaviors and mistakes, and they didn’t have the positive role models I had. So, right now, some of them are still suffering.”

Evans being ever-present in BISD schools affords him the opportunity to hear from countless young men throughout Beaumont. He shares with them the hardships he worked through to reach the positions he’s in now, trying to get them to understand that where Evans is now took hard work.

“It took some dedication, but it also takes believing in yourself,” he said, noting that positive role models are essential in those actions. “I had my dad and some uncles who were positive to me, and I had a stepdad who was a good dude. I had a bunch of good male role models.”

Among the multitude of positive male role models to help shape his future was one “larger-than-life” public figure, who may have provided the impetus for Evans’ political aspirations, including a planned congressional run.

Political plans

When he was a child growing up in Eatonville –  one of the first all-black self-governing municipalities in the country that sits six miles north of Orlando – Evans told The Examiner he met Mayor Anthony Grant.

“He was very close to us, so his touch was very close,” he said. “I just remember him and the things he did when I was a child and a teen. He was a smaller guy, but his presence was larger than life. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to get into politics.”

As the only candidate in his race on the 2022 ballot, Evans is the apparent chairman-elect for the Jefferson County Republican Party in a journey that actually began in 2012.

“I wanted to get politically active, and I had been in the area long enough that the kids were a little bit bigger and we had acclimated to the city and county. I felt that my work was stable, and it was time to begin my public service journey.”

Explaining that his parents never preached Democrat or Republican concepts to him, Evans said, “You kinda align yourself with a certain party when you’re African American. At least for me, I did.”

Evans explained that his ideologies didn’t line up with that of the national Democratic Party and that caused him to locally seek information from then-Republican Party Chairman Billy Oliver.

“So, I called him at about 7 or 8 o’clock at night, and he said, ‘Come on down here,’” Evans said. “So, I went down and we started talking. He said, ‘Man, I prayed for a guy like you to come in because if we could ever add more black people to the party, we could really affect change. And people would understand we’re not a bunch of mean, racist white guys.’ He gave me a chance and allowed me to be a part of his administrative team. I learned a lot about the party structure.”

As party chair, Evans hopes to open up the Republican Party to a more diverse cross-section of people. His priorities include ensuring the party is represented in every corner of the community, registering and encouraging people to vote.

“Then, it’s about finding quality candidates,” he said.

If all goes according to Evans’ plans, he’ll be one of those candidates being touted by a new party chair in five years. That’s when he plans to run for Congress.

“When I saw myself as a congressman, I started making decisions a congressman would make and doing things a congressman would do,” he said. “I read political books; I read books about society, about government and about economics. I put myself to be in the position that I’m in now. I made myself a goal and said that in 15 years I’m going to be in Congress. I’m 10 years in, but I’ve been elected to two seats, so I think I’m moving in the right direction.”

The importance of representation

Evans told The Examiner it is of “the utmost importance” for young black kids to see people who look like them serving in positions of influence.

“Once again, you’ve got to see yourself in these roles. And when I say ‘see yourself,’ sometimes you have to see people in these roles,” he said.

“Perfect example: I’m a Republican, but I tell you what, when Barack Obama won the presidency, I knew it was real! That’s when I set those goals and said, ‘I’m going to Congress because this is real, and perhaps I could go beyond that.’ While we differ in our ideologies and our politics, I respect the man for what he did because he shattered some ceilings and he crossed some bridges. For me, I feel like I can take it a step further and be the change this party needs. To a degree, it may be wishful thinking. But, I know for a fact that I’ll be working really hard toward it.”

Evans sometimes refers to himself and his community efforts as “cannon fodder,” a term used to describe the frontline soldiers who typically get killed at the start of a battle or war.

“I may only be on the frontlines, and I may be one of the dudes who gets mowed down, but that’s OK if the whole army is moving forward,” he said. “If I have to take one for the team, so be it. I understand that I’m working toward something I may never see. Martin Luther King Jr. never got to see his dream, but what would have happened if he didn’t dream it and put it out for the world to see?”