NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
4805 MT. HOPE DRIVE • BALTIMORE, MD 21215-3297 • (410) 580-5777
BENJAMIN TODD JEALOUS
President & Chief Executive Officer
LEON W RUSSELL
Chairman, Resolutions Committee
National Board of Directors
ROSLYN M. BROCK
Chairman, Board of Directors
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the
nation’s oldest, largest and most widely-recognized grassroots based civil rights
organization. Formed in 1909 by a multiracial group of progressive thinkers, the
NAACP is a nonprofit organization established with the objective of ensuring the
political, educational, social, and economic equality of people of color. For over
102 years, the NAACP has challenged this nation to uphold its promise of equal
opportunity toward the goal of eliminating racial prejudice and removing all
barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes.
In a process established by the NAACP Constitution, this resolution was adopted
by the delegates to the 101st Annual Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, during
the legislative session in July, 2010. It was subsequently ratified by the NAACP
National Board of Directors at its meeting on October 15, 2010. This resolution is
now the policy of the Association, and is “binding on the Board of Directors, the
Executive Committee, the Officers, and all units.”
Healing a Society Made Sick
WHEREAS, the NAACP is dedicated to erasing all barriers to equality and
discrimination; and
WHEREAS, the NAACP takes action to correct laws, policies, and mistakes of
individuals and governments which have a long term negative impact on our
membership, constituency, and the country; and
WHEREAS, the NAACP has advocated for reparations for descendants for slaves and
Federal and State Legislative efforts have also come to no avail; and
WHEREAS, slavery deprived the African-American of freedom, culture, a religion of
their choice, dignity, and human aspirations solely because of the color of his skin from
which the Black American is slowly emerging; and
WHEREAS, official policies of national and state governments protecting slavery and
limiting civil rights for 145 years after the Civil War continued a climate of violence,
illiteracy, poverty, bad health, and poor diet which particularly persists today among
Black Americans; and
WHEREAS, Black males number in the country’s criminal justice system is greater than
the number in college; and
WHEREAS, since the Civil War, the leadership of the southern states allowed a
colonial economy to develop as raw materials such as wood, coal, and cheap labor
were extracted to create finished products and profits which benefited the rest of the
country and other nations rather than those in South, including Blacks; and
WHEREAS, as a result of this colonial, extractive economy and hundreds of years of
slavery and restricted rights, people in the Southern states and people of color and poor
whites suffer from poor education, poverty, high rates of infant mortality, obesity, poor
diet, illiteracy, and debilitating rates of imprisonment.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, despite many efforts to gain deserved reparations,
the NAACP at this time, without abandoning previous positions, supports investments in
environmental, educational, health, business, and training programs to attempt to allow
Blacks and the poor to recover from hundreds of years of exploitation including slavery,
post-slavery, and colonial style extractive economic exploitation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP call upon the American government and
citizens to recognize the immense wealth which has been extracted from the Southern
states and all people of color which has caused moral and economic exploitation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP call upon the United States
Government and several foreign countries which participated in or benefited from the
African slave trade countries to make such investments to improve the conditions of
2010 African-Americans through better schools, health clinics, job training,
environmental cleanup of landfills, and other such environmental injustice to allow the
people of color damaged by slavery’s policies to develop the health and economic
standards of the entire country; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP calls for such aid to directly address
specific problems such as violence in families and neighborhoods through improved diet
and child care, high rates of imprisonment through mentoring and male role models in
grades 2—5, and health problems through greater preventative care and neighborhood
health clinics, and jobs through specific programs to recycle waste and remediate
polluted sites; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the NAACP call upon its members and all citizens of
the United States to understand and accept the dire need to help those at the bottom of
the environmental, economic, and social ladder to prosper, which is a sure way for our
country to regain lost standing as the compassionate and democratic country in the
world.
Roslyn M. Brock
Chairman
National Board of Directors
Leon Russell
Benjamin Todd Jealous
Chairman
President & CEO
Committee on Resolutions