Neill McNeill's Blog

One of my favorite songs of the 1970s is a raucous James Brown romp titled “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.”  In fact, it’s on my mp3 player right now. Now before you toss this aside in disbelief, give me a few seconds. Despite all of James Brown’s personal problems with the law and his four spouses, very few artists put more of themselves into their performances.

Watch some of his last live performances before he died and you can tell James Brown still “had it.” I mean this guy had total control of his songs, his pitch, and the rhythm—rarely missing his cues to sing and shout even when the beat was obscure.

The song “Papa Don’t Take No Mess” was released as a two-part single in 1974 and became a #1 R&B hit. Its lyrics describe a complex individual who struggled with life like everyone else, made mistakes, had a heart and was mysterious, but—at the same time---was quite skillful weeding out someone’s underlying intentions especially if those intentions weren’t the best. Hence the title, “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.”

The song reaches its pinnacle with these lyrics:

 Papa didn’t cuss.

He didn’t raise a whole lotta fuss.

But when we did wrong,

Papa beat the hell out of us.

I couldn’t help but think of this song when I had an opportunity recently to spend some time with new North Carolina A&T State University Chancellor Dr. Stanley Battle. Now certainly he won’t physically “beat” anybody, nor do I expect he’ll “drink a little taste of gin” as the song goes, but Chancellor Battle certainly won’t be taking any mess.

Of the hundreds of people I’ve interviewed over the years, Dr. Battle is probably the most intense, disciplined, and determined. He rarely smiles. He admits he doesn’t have much patience and is easily frustrated. He even told the audience during his “passing of the torch” ceremony that his wife knows what to do when he gets irritated. “She leaves me alone,” he said as the audience laughed.

I do believe Dr. Battle will listen. “Disrespecting people, not paying attention to their feelings, ignoring them… I don’t do that,” he told me during one of my recent “Newsmaker” interviews. “However, once it’s made very clear, we will discuss it and we have to move forward because we’re in a very, very competitive environment.”

Perhaps it will take this intensity to restore public perception after all the allegations of financial mismanagement on the A&T campus during Dr. Battle’s predecessor’s administration. Perhaps it will take this discipline to turn around A&T’s weak graduation and retention rates. Perhaps it will take this determination to find other sources of revenue to help more A&T students afford higher learning.“

"I have to be realistic about the challenges that are there,” he added. “I can’t do it by myself. People will say, ‘good luck Mr. Chancellor.’ I say, ‘good luck to you too’ because both of us better produce because otherwise we won’t be here.”

No doubt about it, Dr. Stanley Battle’s not going to take any mess—from himself or anybody else.  It’s going to be fun watching him work.

I hope you’ll get to watch his “Newsmaker” interview during the 10:00 newscast this Wednesday (September 19) or here on the website.