Barney Schoby, an Adams County civil rights leader and former Mississippi lawmaker, died Tuesday at his home in Natchez, his widow, Joyceria Pickett Schoby, said. He was 87.
Schoby was the first Black man to serve on the Adams County Board of Supervisors, holding the post from 1974 to 1980, and he represented District 94 in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1980 to 1997, the Natchez Democrat reported.
Natchez’s Phillip West, who succeeded Schoby in the House, said he was “a real warrior for trying to help bring about improvements in our community during a time when it was very difficult to do so,” the Natchez Democrat reported. State Rep. Robert Johnson III called Schoby “a pioneer, a fighter, a colloquial warrior for justice” and said Schoby “cut the road and opened up that path that some of us followed,” the newspaper reported.
Joyce Arceneaux Mathis, president of the Natchez NAACP and a state NAACP vice president, said she first met Schoby in 1965 when he was her U.S. government teacher. “Mr. Schoby was a passionate, dynamic and fiery teacher who embraced life with urgency, knowledge and a need to help his people no matter of the sacrifice he or his family had to make,” Mathis said, the Natchez Democrat reported. The newspaper also says Schoby was a co-plaintiff in a late-1980s challenge to a redistricting plan and played a role in the 1988-89 reintegration of Natchez-Adams County schools.
Schoby was born in Liberty on Jan. 14, 1939, to Robert Hughes and Mary B. Schoby and married Joyceria Pickett Schoby on Dec. 22, 1965, the Natchez Democrat reported. Funeral services were scheduled Monday at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Old Washington Road, with burial at Natchez City Cemetery, the newspaper said. The article was republished from the Natchez Democrat with permission.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
