Longtime civil rights and community leader Thomas Platt, who was much-honored for his contributions to African-American life in Henderson, died Tuesday, Nov. 18. He was 96.
“Mr. Platt, he was the consummate gentleman,” Bobbie Jarrett, who had known him since they were neighbors at Dixon Apartments in the early 1960s, said. “He was so community oriented.”
Platt served as the longtime president of the local chapter of the NAACP and as a founder of the Black History Committee, among much else.
“Mr. Thomas Platt—consistent, loyal, faithful, true to the cause,” Rev. Adrian Brooks, a Henderson native and now senior pastor of Memorial Baptist Church in Evansville, said. “Even if there were only a few to show up at those critical moments, he would be one of them.”
In the early years of the civil rights movement in Henderson, “He was my father’s right-hand man at the NAACP,” Brooks said. “Daddy (the late Rev. Anthony Brooks) was president, Mr. Platt was vice president” before serving as president himself.
“We can’t list everything he’s done in Henderson, he’s done so much,” said Rev. Charles Johnson of Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church, which Platt attended until he and his wife of 72 years, Willie, moved to Atlanta a few years ago to be close to their three daughters.
“He was a very humble person. Fought for rights of people but did it with such humility and dignity,” Johnson said. “Just a very humble person. Really thought about the needs of people, helping people, especially his people, get ahead.
“Passionate for youth, making sure they took advantage of educational opportunities. Great church person. Chairperson for the trustees at our church and a father figure to me … A father figure to lot of young men in this Tri-state.”
“As a member of the NAACP, he was instrumental in helping people, those of color, those of low income, find jobs,” Jarrett said. “He was just really instrumental. He did it quietly and unassumingly.
“So when you stop and think, Mr. Platt helped out here and helped out there.,” she said. “I remember when Anaconda (now Century Aluminum) came, he and Rev. Austin Bell assisted in getting lots of people jobs. That was really appreciated.”
Platt wasn’t always quiet. As far back as the 1970s, Platt advocated publicly for Blacks to be hired as teachers and school principals, to serve on the city police and fire departments — not just to provide jobs, before to provide role models for Black youth.
“And also to show the community how to reach their full potential,” Adrian Brooks said. “One of the things Mr. Platt understood was, opening doors of opportunity. We’re not deficit people. We have much to offer. For any community to reach its full potential, it has to use all of the talents within its boundaries. He understood that. He advocated for that.”
A native of Baltimore, “As a young man (Platt) went into the military early,” Jarrett said. “His dad had passed away so he taking care of mother” and his siblings.
Platt served 22 years in the U.S. Army and served in the Korean War. While stationed at the Camp Breckinridge near Morganfield, his met his future wife, Willie Andrews, who had moved to Henderson from her hometown of Guthrie, Kentucky; they married in 1953.
By 1961, they were living in Henderson. When Camp Breckinridge closed in 1965 and was converted into the Breckinridge Job Corps Center (now the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Academy), Platt hired on there, becoming head of the center’s standards and disciplinary department.
He studied the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. extensively and spoke many times about King at schools and public functions.
Platt served on the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of Henderson from 1992 through 2018, according to Jarrett, the Housing Authority’s longtime executive director.
“Coming here and being part of the Housing Authority, he was always supportive and wanted us to revitalize the neighborhood,” Jarrett said. “He didn’t like the condition it was in. He came in full force. We worked with the city of Henderson CDBG program to buy properties up and down MLK.”
“When we started building new affordable housing, he was in the trenches with us,” she said. “He would watch them build and move dirt. He was just excited about it.”
Along the way, the Housing Authority earned numerous awards, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Public Housing Authority of the Year for Kentucky in 2005 and the Kentucky Housing Association’s Large Public Housing Authority of the Year in 2019.
“Mr. Platt was a fine HA commissioner, and I was proud to serve with him,” local insurance agent Nibby Priest, a lifelong friend of one of Platt’s daughters, said in an email message. “His efforts for affordable housing in the 1990s in the East End were instrumental in the efforts underway now.”
Platt served on the board of the Green River Area Development District from 1998 to 2019. He also served on the GRADD Economic Development Board when GRADD staffer Joanna Shake oversaw it.
“We got to travel a lot, to national trainings and conferences,” Shake, who is now executive director of GRADD, said. “He was a great mentor and a friend. But his faith—Mr. Platt taught me so much about perseverance and being faithful.
“He was also really cool,” she said. “Always well dressed. He had such a cool vibe.”
Jarrett said Platt and fellow Housing Authority commissioner Hallie Folz advocated for the opening of a medical clinic on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.
“Mr. Platt was just instrumental in pulling that together,” she said. “He wanted to make sure people in the neighborhood could go to a clinic in their neighborhood. Some didn’t have insurance.”
The Cabell-Platt Medical Center at 700 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. opened in 2015 and bears his name along with that of longtime dentist, pharmacist and Acme Drug Store owner Roger W. “Doc” Cabell. It is operated by the nonprofit Health First Community Health Center to provide quality preventive and primary health care to medically underserved and uninsured people.
Platt also served for years on the board of Audubon Area Community Services.
A scholarship bearing Platt’s name is funded by money raised by the annual Henderson Dust Bowl basketball tournament at the John F. Kennedy Center.
In February 2024, Platt was one of three local African Americans honored at the Henderson County Public Library’s A Night of Excellence event that coincided with Black History Month. Platt received the Legacy of Leadership Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with the Black History Committee, local government and advocacy.
Platt is survived by his wife and their three children—Anita Payne, Thomasine Leachman and Celeste Gainey, all of the Atlanta area—as well as four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Tentative arrangements are for there to be a public viewing from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 29, at Greater Norris Chapel Baptist Church, 937 Washington St., followed by a funeral service at noon.
The Hendersonian will update arrangement information when we learn more.