Owen Cooper: Modern Abraham


(April 30, 2007)

Owen Cooper (1908-1986)

Someone asked if I ever met a “modern day Abraham”. The question prompted me to recall Owen Cooper, who had a profound impact upon my life, my family, and whose legacy still reaches to the ends of the earth.

By God’s grace, I was born in Yazoo City about the same time Owen Cooper founded Mississippi Chemical Corporation; a Yazoo City-based company that prospered to being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Although the Jenkins and Coopers were from opposite sides of the tracks (in more ways than one), our lives intersected. His children were interspersed between the seven Jenkins kids. We attended the same schools and church. The Coopers always treated us as “equals” and as friends.

We lived in the “Old Clampett Place” (you know, the one Jed, Granny, Ellie Mae and Jetho moved out of). Maybe it was because Mr. Cooper had been born near Vicksburg into a home without water and electricity that he had compassion for us, and helped us move into a much nicer home he owned with basic necessities (including an indoor bathroom, running water and electricity.)

Owen Cooper worked with anyone who would lend a hand to resolve Mississippi’s greatest problems; whether it was poverty or racism. I saw him stand up to the KKK and White Citizens’ Councils who ran the State by intimidation and fear. Everyone, white or African-American, feared those gangsters. But Owen Cooper, who had more to lose than anyone, also had the courage to speak the truth when most everyone else retreated into silence and fear.

In one way or another, Mr. Cooper helped each member of my family. To help pay for my first year of college, he created a job at MCC for me as his chauffeur and personal “go-fer”. What a blessing to work closely with and learn from this modern day Abraham. When I would take him to the Jackson airport, he never wasted a moment…dictating letters as we drove. I once drove him to Starkville, where he delivered a speech at Mississippi State University. He worked in the back seat of the car all the way to Starkville and all the way back; redeeming every precious moment in his mobile office. This was before laptop computers and cell phones. He taught me how to do MANY things simultaneously; and do them all well.

One day Mr. Cooper asked me, “William, do you know where Dothan, Alabama is located?” “No sir”, I said. “Well MCC just bought United Chemical of Dothan, and you will be spending the night there tonight, pick up some legal papers for me, and bring them back tomorrow.” I had never driven on an Interstate highway before, but he trusted me to complete the task.

Once Mr. Cooper said he thought I would make a good lawyer, and that I could work at MCC as legal counsel. His confidence in me inspired me to attempt things I would have never done alone. When I told Mr. Cooper I was not cut out to be a lawyer, but was entering the ministry, he beamed with pride.

This usually gifted and blessed man defies definition. He was a businessman, entrepreneur, churchman, diplomat, philanthropist, human rights advocate, humanitarian, and the personification of the word “leader”. And he was successful at all he attempted, just like Abraham.

I once asked Owen Cooper how I could ever repay him for all he had done for me and my family. He responded, “You owe me nothing, except to help others in the name of Jesus when the opportunity presents itself.” That is a debt I will gladly continue repaying as long as I live.

And that is the essence of The Abraham Parallax: BEING blessed in order to BE a blessing…to BE a blessing…and to BE a blessing, again.

P.S. I invite you to read more about my own Abraham, Owen Cooper.

From the Quote Garden
“If I Had My Life to Live Over” --by Owen Cooper

If I had my life to live over, I would love more.
I would especially love others more. I would let this love express itself in a concern for my neighbors, my friends, and with all whom I came in contact.
I would try to let love permeate me, overcome me, overwhelm me, and direct me. I would love the unlovely, the unwanted, the unknown, and the unloved.
I would give more. I would learn early in life the joy of giving, the pleasure of sharing, and the happiness of helping.
I would learn to give more than money. I would give some of life's treasured possessions, such as time, thoughts and kind words.
If I had my life to live over I would be much more unconventional; because where society overlooks people, I would socialize with them;
Where custom acknowledges peers as best with whom to have fellowship, I would want some non-peer friends;Where tradition stratifies people because of economics, education, race or religion,I would want to fellowship with friends in all strata.
I would choose to go where the crowd doesn't go,Where the road is not paved, where the weather is bitter; Where friends are few, where the need is great, And where God is most likely to be found.

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