Growing up in the 60s on the 1800 block of Gordon Street, Cornell Harvey remembers being a stone’s throw away from Burroughs-Molette Elementary School but not being allowed to attend it.
He spent most of his primary education segregated from white students until his senior year of high school, when he transferred from Risley High to Glynn Academy.
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“We realized how far we were behind. Our teachers did what they could do, but still I saw how far we were behind, and the other students knew a whole lot more than we knew, basically because of the curriculum that they had,” he said.
From that point forward, the self-described country boy from Brunswick would embark on a path that would take him across the world and back to Coastal Georgia, where he would eventually become his city’s first Black mayor in its 169-year history, serving from 2014 to 2019.
Now at 73, he’s running for District 4 County Commissioner because he believes he is the galvanizing force that local government needs. He will face incumbent Republican District 4 Commissioner David Sweat in the November general election.
“I could spend time with my family and traveling and do all that stuff, but with me, I love helping people,” Harvey said.
Harvey served in the Air Force for 29 years and reached the rank of Chief Master Sergeant. Upon returning to Brunswick in 2000, he served as North Ward Commissioner in 2003 for 10 years.
During that time, he said that he was able to build up his profile as a community servant.
“I went and engaged myself with things in the community, and people knew me, and they started seeing me around, and they started knowing what I stood for,” he said.
But he also began to recognize that he wanted to make a bigger impact, an ambition that drove him to launch a mayoral bid.
After finishing his second term as mayor, he realized he wasn’t ready to retire from public service. He set his sights on the District 4 seat because he was dissatisfied with the flow of information the district was receiving about happenings in the county.
“Lately, a lot of information has been coming down to District Four. What’s happening with the water, the flooding, and so forth. All that is coming out, and it’s coming out heavily, and that’s good. But before then, we didn’t see anything,” Harvey said.
If elected, Harvey e promises a continuous flow of information about what he can and can’t do. He also says he is willing to tap into the county budget surplus, if need be, to solve community problems.
Two of the county’s largest question marks are the former Hercules/Pinova plant and the Glynn Place Mall, both of which sit in District 4.
Harvey says he sees opportunity in converting the Hercules site into a shopping area. He opposes the idea of a data center there, or housing, at least on the ground level.
As for Glynn Place Mall, he is more unsure; he said that he would implore the current owners to collaborate with the Brunswick-Glynn Economic Development Authority
but also realizes that shopping malls are no longer the hubs that they used to be.
“There are a few stores that are trying to come back, and then there are stores that have been faithful and stuck it out, and if they stick it out for just a little while longer. When the economy comes back, I think it’s gonna change,” he said.
