One argument for firing H.L. McGill as the director of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center was that he missed a Chamber of Commerce meeting that he was supposed to attend. In response to an earlier post on this blog, in which that allegation, made by McGill’s supervisor, was mentioned, McGill called to suggest that I call the chamber employee who set up the meeting, Judy Knod. I did. He was at the meeting.

I don’t know what nuances there might be here. In fact, I’m not sure the full picture of why McGill was terminated in the first place will ever be filled in. He says profanities were slung his way, that he couldn’t file the IMLS on time because the person who created the online file at grant.gov had set the file up incorrectly. He said he came in for unfair criticism over the timing of an earlier $1 million proposal for an Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council grant; the museum was awarded $700,000 from the NCRC this week, he said.

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He also said he was never able to give the speech mentioned in the post — in which he wrote that a white director would never have been treated the way he was — to the Black Legislative Caucus referred to in the previous post because they weren’t able to give him the time during the session.

He also said he hesitated to call me to provide his side of the story, since it will keep the story alive. “I just want to go back to work,” he said. He will, on Monday.

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