NATCHEZ &045; As mayor of Natchez, it’s part of Phillip West’s job to meet people and travel places.

But on Saturday he reflected on places he couldn’t go and people he couldn’t associate with in the days of segregation because he is black and because his parents, protective of he and his siblings, wouldn’t let him.

West’s reflections were part of the National Park Service program &uot;To Endure and Prevail: An African-American Historical Experience in Natchez, Mississippi.&uot;

The free program was held Saturday afternoon at the Natchez Association for the Preservation of Afro-American Culture’s Main Street museum.

One of West’s first experiences with segregation was more informal, but no less real, that the Jim Crow code that governed the lunch counters and movie theaters of the time.

It was simply that West, then 12 or 13 years old, suddenly was not allowed to play with white friends he had played with for years just off of Martin Luther King Jr. Street, then Pine Street.

&uot;I was raised that there were certain areas you don’t go,&uot; West said. My parents knew we could come up missing and never be heard from again Š and that nothing would be done about it.&uot;

After graduating high school, West was encouraged by his mother to move up North, and he headed to Chicago in June 1964.

But West said after the killing of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, he was moved to move back home &uot;to help make this a better place.&uot;

West told the audience he and his father had a near miss with death themselves shortly after he moved back home in December 1964.

He was referring to an incident in which he and his father, on a trip to Brookhaven, were cut off by another vehicle that slowed down to a crawl in front of them. West and his father then escaped along a gravel road.

But the community as a whole and black Natchezians specifically have traveled a long road since then, ending up at a place where they positions of leadership that would have been unthinkable in the days of segregation, West pointed out.

Since the days when George F. West became the first black school board member in 1968, Adams County now has three black aldermen and two black supervisors.

Black people hold the positions of Justice Court, Chancery Court and Circuit Court judges and, in June, Phillip West became Natchez’s first black mayor since Reconstruction.

West said that after courting controversy his whole life, including organizing and participating in many civil rights projects, &uot;it’s a minor miracle I’m standing here today as mayor.&uot;

West pointed out his story is one of many by people who served in civil rights movement and remember well the days when Jim Crow was king.

But he also said he believes better days are ahead for black people and for Natchez as a whole.

&uot;There will always be those who don’t want us to move forward, and there’ll always be some who want us to move back,&uot; West said. &uot;But I don’t believe the majority of our citizens intend to go back.

&uot;We’ve opened a lot of doors. And if we handle it right, those doors will remain open and we will all walk through them together, Šand no one will outshine Natchez.&uot;

The program also included presentations on black history in Natchez by Mimi Miller of the Historic Natchez Foundation, Jackson State Professor Robert Walker and the Rev. Leroy White, a NAPAC board member.