{"id":1533,"date":"2021-02-18T07:06:26","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T07:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2021-02-19T02:57:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T02:57:36","slug":"a-tribute-to-donald-lee-tucker-sr-december-26-1952-january-2-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1533","title":{"rendered":"A TRIBUTE TO RETIRED DONALD LEE TUCKER, SR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Lee Tucker, Sr.<\/strong> was born December 26, 1952, in New Madrid, Missouri, to the late Rose Hester Gray and Johnny Lee Tucker. He attended O’Bannon, a segregated school, and\u00a0graduated from\u00a0integrated New Madrid High School.\u00a0Donald\u00a0continued his education at Rust College in Holly Springs, MS, where he served as the President of the Student Government Association.\u00a0Donald\u00a0graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in political science.<\/p>\n

Donald\u00a0was the beneficiary of the lawsuit filed on October 11, 1972, by Leroy Frazier and seven others of the Rust College Student Government Association challenging the electoral system to allow college students to vote in the cities where they attended college. They won the lawsuit on September 18, 1974.\u00a0Since<\/strong>\u00a0Rust College students\u00a0won\u00a0the\u00a0<\/strong>case, it granted college students nationwide the right to vote in the cities where they attended college. In 1976, when\u00a0Donald\u00a0was a junior, he ran for and won the Election Commissioner’s position in Marshall County. He was the first student and African American to be elected to this position in Mississippi and, most likely, in the United States of America.<\/p>\n

Donald’s wife, Barbara Catledge Tucker, is a Rust graduate, and her brother William Catledge and three sisters Virginia, Brenda, and Margie Catledge also graduated Rust.\u00a0Donald\u00a0and Barbara’s daughter Barbette “Joy” Johnson, the oldest of three children, also graduated from Rust and served as Student Government Association president.\u00a0Donald\u00a0and Joy were the first father and daughter to both serve as President of SGA.\u00a0Donald’s brother, James Tucker, was the first of the four brothers to attend and graduate from Rust College.\u00a0Their brothers,\u00a0Harold and Ralph Tucker are also Rust College graduates. In keeping to the Rust College tradition, their sister Diana Gray attended Rust for three and one-half years.<\/p>\n

Upon graduating from college,\u00a0Donald\u00a0was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He was an amateur boxer representing the Army. He also served as a research development officer and company commander.\u00a0Donald\u00a0retired as a Major after 20 years of military service. Bill Craven, one of\u00a0Donald’s buddies, said, ” It was an honor and privilege to know\u00a0Donald\u00a0who taught by his actions and words.”<\/p>\n

Donald\u00a0was a\u00a0devout\u00a0Christian, as well as a strong family man who provided for his family.\u00a0Donald’s favorite hobby was cooking,\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<\/strong>his specialty was barbeque. He was\u00a0extremely friendly\u00a0and never met a stranger.<\/p>\n

Donald was married to Barbara Tucker for 44 years, and they have three children and eight grandchildren.<\/p>\n

He has four brothers and four sisters.\u00a0Donald\u00a0Lee’s final resting place is at\u00a0the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery Central\u00a0in Radcliff, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Special Note:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Rust College students’ involvement in politics and the civil rights movement had a significant impact on the outcome of the 2020 election. The action\u00a0that was\u00a0taken by Rust College students 48 years ago allowed college students to vote in the election in the city where they attended college. Further, college students’ votes played a significant role in deciding the winner of the election between Joseph Biden and\u00a0Donald\u00a0Trump for President of the United States of America. See\u00a0Leroy Frazier and seven others vs. Callicutt<\/u>\u00a0lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Donald\u00a0was the beneficiary of the lawsuit filed on October 11, 1972<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Lee Tucker, Sr. was born December 26, 1952, in New Madrid, Missouri, to the late Rose Hester<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-history","category-black-history-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}