JSU alum and traveling man is living his dream

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By MARIO NICHOLS AND RACHEL JAMES-TERRY

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”” top_margin=”none”][vc_column type=”” top_margin=”none” width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space height=”32px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”” top_margin=”none”][vc_column type=”” top_margin=”none” width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space height=”32px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”” top_margin=”none”][vc_column type=”” top_margin=”none” width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Charles Rush has lived in places like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, South Africa, West Africa and Europe. This list does not even skim the surface of destinations he’s touched.

An ’89 graduate of Jackson State University, Rush initially wanted to be a news broadcaster. However, after graduating with a degree in broadcast journalism, he pined for something more—a life overseas—and he has been traipsing across continents ever since.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”” top_margin=”none”][vc_column type=”” top_margin=”none” width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space height=”32px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”” top_margin=”none”][vc_column type=”” top_margin=”none” width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

A native of Belzoni, Mississippi, Rush is based in Ghana, West Africa, as the regional agricultural counselor for the U.S. Embassy.

“I wanted to do broadcasting, and Jackson State had an accredited journalism program. As long as the program was nationally accredited, and you had the talent, you could become a broadcaster anywhere in the world,” said Rush, who enrolled in the university in the fall of 1984.

After attending a workshop at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Rush said he knew he wanted to live in a big city. Despite understanding that most broadcasters start in small markets, “I decided Greenwood, Greenville or Meridian just wasn’t for me,” he explained.

Rush expressed appreciation for Dr. Elayne Hayes Anthony, now the chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, for having his best interest in mind. Yet he didn’t listen to her about taking a new computer course for journalism. “I did not take her advice,” he said. “I went to the dean and pleaded my case, and the dean said I could opt out of the course.”

Although he admits that he should’ve taken the class, Rush said the experience taught him not to be afraid to challenge authority. Aside from crediting JSU with his start, he also describes it as an “awesome and nurturing” environment that is “conducive to taking rough diamonds and polishing and refining them.”

With degree in hand, Rush took a job with Naval Station Washington in D.C., where he accepted a short-term assignment in Naples, Italy. While there, Rush met other Americans working and living in Naples. It then became his mission to find a vehicle to do the same oversees. “I wanted the adventure and to see new places that I’ve only read about in world history,” he explained.

Eventually, Rush landed an assignment with his current employer, the Foreign Agricultural Service, which is the international agency within the United States Department of Agriculture. “I knew once I got into the Foreign Agricultural Service, I would have an opportunity to apply for the Foreign Service,” said Rush, who was hired after his third attempt with the organization.

Now, his primary job is helping U.S. businesses sell their products. Rush references a recent call from a U.S. company promoting plant-based food. “They asked how we saw their products fitting into West Africa’s economy,” he said. “Our home-grown knowledge informs U.S. companies about the economic situation on the ground. They look to us for insight they could not get otherwise.”

U.S. representatives discuss trade with representatives from West and East Africa. (Photo special to JSU)

In many cases, Rush said they are “international trade specialists” building relations between U.S. companies and Ghanaians, while helping U.S. companies find buyers for their products. “We are also capacity builders. We provide academic training to Ghanaian agriculturalists through programs (like Thad Cochran Agricultural Leadership).”

Of his travels, Rush revealed that his time in Baghdad, from September 2010-2011, was the most harrowing. While transporting Iraqi government officials to the U.S. Embassy for a meeting with an irrigation company, Rush said an alarm sounded, which prompted the officials to decide to exit the vehicle and not travel into the compound. After letting the officials out, he drove into the compound and got out. “The door to the gate closes, and mortar lands probably five yards from where I stood,” he recalled. “By the grace of God, it did not explode, but I could not move from where I was until the ordnance disposal team came to remove it. This was probably the luckiest day of my life.”

Also, Rush shared his observations, based on his experiences, about how American and African- American culture has crossed borders and been adapted by other cultures. “They’ve adopted Halloween and Black Friday for the most part in South Africa,” he said.

The use of the N-word also seems to have a different impact than in America, Rush explained. “They don’t understand the meaning. They hear a rapper use it, and they think it’s just like any other word. My colleagues and I are left explaining (the implication) and how we don’t appreciate them using it.”

Also, the baggy-pants trend is popular in Germany, according to Rush. “You see the style of their clothes, and you’re just like ‘What is going on?’”

When Barack Obama ran for president, Rush said an inaugural ball was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, which almost everyone in the U.S. Embassy attended. “People felt it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. People were enthused about his potential presidency. He represented them as he represented us. He was someone they looked up to.”

A highlight of his work is that Rush met his now wife, a native of South Africa, employed with the Department of Agriculture in South Africa. Together, they have a son. At the end of his term in July 2020, Rush and his family plan to return to Rome. (At the time of publication, it is unknown how COVID-19 may affect their plans.) “That is where I had my first exposure to working and living overseas. It’s coming full circle,” he said.

Rush admitted that he enjoys being an African- American living in Ghana. “You see billboards that reflect Africans. It’s nice not being the only one. In Poland, in many situations, I was the only (African-American).”

In Europe, Africans are not able to achieve success as they do in the U.S. because the conditions are not the same, Rush shared. The laws prohibiting discrimination; in many cases, do not exist as they do in America.

When asked his thoughts on the deaths of Phillip Gibbs, a junior at JSU, and James Green, a Jim Hill High School student, killed on the JSU campus by police on May 15, 1970, in what has been described as an act of racial bias, Rush said he is reminded that “Jackson State has always been at the forefront of challenging a system that has been determined to defer our dreams.”

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