J.P. Paige, Councilman “The Name Means Servant”

By Terrance Afer-Anderson
Special to the New Journal and Guide

PART TWO

I interviewed Ward 4 Norfolk City Councilman John J.P. Paige recently in his City Council offices. I soon realized that this interview was an occasion to have the Councilman tell his own story. Part One appeared in this newspaper on August 13, 2026. Part Two follows.

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“Some of the things we have lost over the years are our own businesses. When I was growing up, we had our own businesses. We were self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

“We now have only one Black-owned grocery store, that is a full-service grocery store, in the entire state of Virginia. That happens to be in my ward. It is the E. Palmer Berkley Supermarket.

“With all of this education, with all of our HBCUs, you mean to tell me nobody is preparing our children, our young people, to look into entrepreneurship to sustain our community? Does success mean that we move into other communities, that we go to work for someone else, instead of being where we were raised, with our own people, providing services that we very well need, services that we haven’t provided for ourselves for years?

“Anytime anybody asks me where Ward 4 starts, I say it starts right here… in Huntersville… from the tracks on down. Then I take them all the way around the city, so they can see where Ward 4 is.

“Working as an elected official, a city councilman, demands sacrifice, a sacrifice that others don’t see, how willing you have to be to do this work, to take on this role. It is considered a part-time job, but there is nobody that will ever get elected that’s going to work it like it is a part-time job, particularly for Ward 4, because we have full-time issues. Like the suffering of the people. I thought I knew. But to see the regular suffering… (a pause).

“All you have to do is to do the research on crime numbers and the research on property values and see the difference in what’s happening on one side versus the other. One of our greatest issues as a people becomes deciding which issue do we decide to take solutions to; so it causes a divide among us in community service because there are so many issues that need to be addressed.

“When the symptoms of this systematic epidemic that preludes us is so prevalent before us what else is left for us to do? The ‘Willie Lynch theory said that even when the chains come off, these things that we’ve done will cause these people to suffer for a thousand years afterwards… for a thousand years afterwards.

“Those who owned businesses in our communities sent their children to school to go get jobs with others from other communities. We began calling success being able to move away from your very own people.

“It wasn’t the intent, from our expectation, for integration to compromise us. You have to go to our leaders and not just quote the things they present to you. You have to dig into the things that they don’t. Before Dr. King was assassinated, he had said (paraphrasing), ‘What a mistake I have made. This is an economic issue. We need to be more concerned about economics than anything.’

“But man, there is no reward greater than serving God’s people, who I believe we are. I’m talking about the melanated population. There is no place on Earth that we did not first exist.

“But work has to be done! For as long as hatred and the power of racism has existed, it is the system created that made it that way. In the midst of the indoctrination that has been before us, it is up to us to be beacons of light and decide to stay with ‘The Light.’ That’s where your freedom comes from.

“So, my greatest reward has been serving my people right where they are and having the ability to meet them there. The least of us, I treat as they are the most of us, because I am a believer in those that are last will be first and those that are first will be last. So, as far as having this uncanny ability to not believe, feel or think that I’m better or greater than anyone, and to be able to hear the concerns of all, there is nothing like serving His people.

Terrance: As my time with Councilman Paige was drawing to a close, I was curious of what he thought of the power of voting as he is up for re-election.

Paige: “The power of voting is so very important, but it is so hard to teach you later, after the fact. People sometimes feel as if they are without hope, as they’ve voted, but it hasn’t made a difference in their life. That’s why local politics is so important to me (thumping his desk throughout as he accentuated his point). Just as with Mr. Riddick, being an elected official is where I get to touch everyday people and the people from the communities in which I grew up in, to make a difference in their lives and that is why I remain accessible. We have to do more listening than we do talking, so we can all be on the same page.”

Terrance: How so appropriate to conclude Councilman Paige’s first-person narrative with the word page. As it happens, in the Old French, Latin and German the root of the spelling of his name Paige means “young servant.” Even in government, lawmaking bodies, a page serves as a messenger, running errands on the legislative floor. The Councilman runs errands and serves as a messenger for his constituents, where he finds his very own roots.

John J.P. Paige has two sons, John Rashad Paige, Mckenzie’s father, and Kennerly Benraty. His mother Karen Womack and sister Ashley Womack Dixon are amongst my favorite fellow parishioners at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, where he attends as well.

But then, there is young McKenzie! Be not surprised if this bright-eyed, precocious, remarkably attentive five-year-old one day follows in her grandfather’s footsteps and seeks elected office. If she does, know that she too will prove to be an impassioned servant, a Paige, with a heart for the people from whence she came.