Eddie Ponds, Publisher of The Drum Newspaper Visited the Gravesite of Rev. Arthur Tasker

Eddie Ponds 
At the Gravesite of Rev. Arthur Tasker
Photo Credit: Antoinette Harrell

Eddie Ponds and I often hold conversations about Rev. Arthur Tasker, the first and only black mayor to ever hold the seat as mayor in the City of Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Rev. Arthur Tasker also started Tasker's A.M.E. Church. According to the 1870 United States Federal Census, he was born around 1835 in Virginia. He married his wife Sarah Smith Tasker in 1887 in Tangipahoa Parish,

The children listed in the 1870 census were: David Tasker, Clinton Tasker,  Mary Tasker, and Harriet Tasker. In the 1880 United Census the children listed were: Wm. C. Tasker, Levina Tasker, Amma Tasker, Lois Tasker, and Augretia Tasker.

For years Eddie Ponds and I have been talking about the need to place a historic marker in Ponchatoula for Rev. Arthur Tasker. We both know how important these historic marker are.  There isn't on historic marker from Ponchatoula to Kentwood, Louisiana.