103rd NAACP ANNUAL
CONVENTION
Press Kit
1|Page
NAACP Mission
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the
political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racebased discrimination.
Vision Statement
The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a
society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.
Objectives
The following statement of objectives is found on the first page of the NAACP Constitution - the
principal objectives of the Association shall be:

To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens

To achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the
United States

To remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes

To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights

To inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its
elimination

To educate persons as to their constitutional rights and to take all lawful action to secure
the exercise thereof, and to take any other lawful action in furtherance of these objectives,
consistent with the NAACP's Articles of Incorporation and this Constitution.
2|Page
NAACP Strategic Plan:
Game Changers for the 21st Century
For more than a century the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has
worked to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons
and to eliminate race-based discrimination. Inspired by the force and commitment of The Call of
1909, which denounced the growing oppression of people of color and mobilized thousands to
work to bring this discrimination to an end, the NAACP seeks to establish a strategic direction as
it embarks on developing The New Call for the 21st Century.
In the fall of 2011, the NAACP launched a process to develop its strategic direction and plan,
creating a powerful vision for the future, and setting organizational goals that would focus its
work for the 21st Century.
The five NAACP Game Changers below address the major areas of inequality facing African
Americans that are the focus of the NAACP’s work.
Economic Sustainability
A chance to live the American Dream for all
Every person will have equal opportunity to achieve economic success, sustainability,
and financial security.
Education
A free, high-quality, public education for all
Every child will receive a free, high quality, equitably-funded, public pre-K and K-12
education followed by diverse opportunities for accessible, affordable vocational or
university education.
Health
Health equality for all Americans including a healthy life and high-quality health care
Everyone will have equal access to affordable, high-quality health care, and racially
disparate health outcomes will end.
3|Page
Game Changers (Continued)
Public Safety and Criminal Justice
Equitable dispensation of justice for all
Disproportionate incarceration, racially motivated policing strategies, and racially biased,
discriminatory, and mandatory minimum sentencing will end. Incarceration will be
greatly reduced and communities will be safer. The death penalty will be abolished at the
state and federal level, as well as in the military.
Voting Rights and Political Representation
Protect and enhance voting rights and fair representation
Every American will have free, open, equal, and protected access to the vote and fair
representation at all levels of the political process. By protecting democracy, enhancing
equity, and increasing democratic participation and civic engagement, African Americans
will be proportionally elected to political office
Making these game changers a reality will require the Board of Directors’ leadership, broad
outreach in venues such as regional and state conferences, an effective program to educate
national, state, and local leaders about the plan and participation of the units.
The program for units will contain clear messages regarding strategies and plans and will provide
training so that members can adapt the aims of the plan to the needs of their community and
move it to action. Member feedback will be brought into national level discussions in order to
identify the resources and support needed for members to be successful in their local
communities.
NAACP Staff will work closely with members, providing training, support, and expertise on the
Game Changers and will periodically review work
4|Page
NAACP History
Founded February 12, 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely
recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and
supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights
in their communities, campaigning for equal opportunity and conducting voter mobilization.
Founding Group
The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and
the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham
Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals
that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of
abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to
discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E.
B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released
on the centennial of Lincoln's birth.
Other early members included Joel and Arthur Spingarn, Josephine Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Inez
Milholland, Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Sophonisba Breckinridge, John Haynes Holmes,
Mary McLeod Bethune, George Henry White, Charles Edward Russell, John Dewey, William
Dean Howells, Lillian Wald, Charles Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Fanny
Garrison Villard, and Walter Sachs.
Echoing the focus of Du Bois' Niagara Movement began in 1905, the NAACP's stated goal was
to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the
United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, the equal protection of the law,
and universal adult male suffrage, respectively.
The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic
equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP
seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes.
The NAACP established its national office in New York City in 1910 and named a board of
directors as well as a president, Moorfield Storey, a white constitutional lawyer and former
president of the American Bar Association. The only African American among the organization's
executives, Du Bois was made director of publications and research and in 1910 established the
official journal of the NAACP, The Crisis.
5|Page
NAACP History (Continued)
The Crisis
Du Bois founded The Crisis magazine as the premier crusading voice for civil rights. Today, The
Crisis, one of the oldest black periodicals in America, continues this mission. A respected journal
of thought, opinion and analysis, the magazine remains the official publication of the NAACP
and is the NAACP's articulate partner in the struggle for human rights for people of color.
In time, The Crisis became a voice of the Harlem Renaissance, as Du Bois published works by
Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and other African American literary figures. The publication's
prominence would rise.
Now published quarterly, The Crisis is dedicated to being an open and honest forum for
discussing critical issues confronting people of color, American society and the world in addition
to highlighting the historical and cultural achievements of these diverse peoples.
In essays, interviews, in-depth reporting, etc., writers explore past and present issues concerning
race and its impact on educational, economic, political, social, moral, and ethical issues. And,
each issue is highlighted with a special section, "The NAACP Today" reporting the news and
events of the NAACP on a local and national level.
Growth
With a strong emphasis on local organizing, by 1913 the NAACP had established branch offices
in such cities as Boston, Massachusetts; Baltimore, Maryland; Kansas City, Missouri;
Washington, D.C.; Detroit, Michigan; and St. Louis, Missouri.
Joel Spingarn, one of the NAACP founders, was a professor of literature and formulated much of
the strategy that led to the growth of the organization. He was elected board chairman of the
NAACP in 1915 and served as president from 1929-1939.
A series of early court battles, including a victory against a discriminatory Oklahoma law that
regulated voting by means of a grandfather clause (Guinn v. United States, 1910), helped
establish the NAACP's importance as a legal advocate. The fledgling organization also learned to
harness the power of publicity through its 1915 battle against D. W. Griffith's inflammatory
Birth of a Nation, a motion picture that perpetuated demeaning stereotypes of African Americans
and glorified the Ku Klux Klan.
6|Page
NAACP History (Continued)
NAACP membership grew rapidly, from around 9,000 in 1917 to around 90,000 in 1919, with
more than 300 local branches. Writer and diplomat James Weldon Johnson became the
Association's first black secretary in 1920, and Louis T. Wright, a surgeon, was named the first
black chairman of its board of directors in 1934.
The NAACP waged a 30-year campaign against lynching, among the Association's top priorities.
After early worries about its constitutionality, the NAACP strongly supported the federal Dyer
Bill, which would have punished those who participated in or failed to prosecute lynch mobs.
Though the bill would pass the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate never passed the bill,
or any other anti-lynching legislation. Most credit the resulting public debate-fueled by the
NAACP report "Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1919"-with drastically
decreasing the incidence of lynching.
Johnson stepped down as secretary in 1930 and was succeeded by Walter F. White. White was
instrumental not only in his research on lynching (in part because, as a very fair-skinned African
American, he had been able to infiltrate white groups), but also in his successful block of
segregationist Judge John J. Parker's nomination by President Herbert Hoover to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
White presided over the NAACP's most productive period of legal advocacy. In 1930 the
association commissioned the Margold Report, which became the basis for the successful
reversal of the separate-but-equal doctrine that had governed public facilities since 1896's Plessy
v. Ferguson. In 1935 White recruited Charles H. Houston as NAACP chief counsel. Houston was
the Howard University law school dean whose strategy on school-segregation cases paved the
way for his protégé Thurgood Marshall to prevail in 1954's Brown v. Board of Education, the
decision that overturned Plessy.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, which was disproportionately disastrous for African
Americans, the NAACP began to focus on economic justice. After years of tension with white
labor unions, the Association cooperated with the newly formed Congress of Industrial
Organizations in an effort to win jobs for black Americans. White, a friend and adviser to First
Lady--and NAACP national board member--Eleanor Roosevelt, met with her often in attempts to
convince President Franklin D. Roosevelt to outlaw job discrimination in the armed forces,
defense industries and the agencies spawned by Roosevelt's New Deal legislation.
7|Page
NAACP History (Continued)
Roosevelt ultimately agreed to open thousands of jobs to black workers when labor leader A.
Philip Randolph, in collaboration with the NAACP, threatened a national March on Washington
movement in 1941. President Roosevelt also agreed to set up a Fair Employment Practices
Committee (FEPC) to ensure compliance.
Throughout the 1940s the NAACP saw enormous growth in membership, recording roughly
600,000 members by 1946. It continued to act as a legislative and legal advocate, pushing for a
federal anti-lynching law and for an end to state-mandated segregation.
Civil Rights Era
By the 1950s the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, headed by Marshall, secured the
last of these goals through Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed segregation in
public schools. The NAACP's Washington, D.C., bureau, led by lobbyist Clarence M. Mitchell
Jr., helped advance not only integration of the armed forces in 1948 but also passage of the Civil
Rights Acts of 1957, 1964, and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Despite such dramatic courtroom and congressional victories, the implementation of civil rights
was a slow, painful, and oft times violent. The unsolved 1951 murder of Harry T. Moore, an
NAACP field secretary in Florida whose home was bombed on Christmas night, and his wife
was just one of many crimes of retribution against the NAACP and its staff and members.
NAACP Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie also became high-profile
targets for pro-segregationist violence and terrorism. In 1962, their home was firebombed and
later Medgar was assassinated by a sniper in front of their residence following years of
investigations into hostility against blacks and participation in non-violent demonstrations such
as sit-ins to protest the persistence of Jim Crow segregation throughout the south.
Violence also met black children attempting to enter previously segregated schools in Little
Rock, Arkansas, and other southern cities. Throughout the south many African Americans were
still denied the right to register and vote.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s echoed the NAACP's goals, but leaders such
as Martin Luther King Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, felt that direct
action was needed to obtain them.
Although it was criticized for working exclusively within the system by pursuing legislative and
judicial solutions, the NAACP did provide legal representation and aid to members of other
protest groups over a sustained period of time. The NAACP even posted bail for hundreds of
8|Page
NAACP History (Continued)
Freedom Riders in the ‘60s who had traveled to Mississippi to register black voters and
challenge Jim Crow policies.
Led by Roy Wilkins, who succeeded Walter White as secretary in 1955, the NAACP, along with
A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and other national organizations began to plan the 1963
March on Washington.
With the passage of major civil rights legislation the following year, the Association
accomplished what seemed an insurmountable task. In the following years, the NAACP began to
diversify its goals.
Assisting the NAACP throughout the years were many celebrities and leaders, including Sammy
Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Ella Baker, an NAACP director of
branches who stressed the importance of young people and women in the organization by
recruiting members, raising money, and organizing local campaigns; Daisy Bates, NAACP
national board member, Arkansas state conference president and advisor to the Little Rock Nine;
and NAACP stalwarts like Kivie Kaplan, a businessman and philanthropist from Boston, who
served as president of the NAACP from 1966 until 1975. He personally led nationwide NAACP
Life Membership efforts and fought to keep African Americans away from illegal drugs.
Close of the First Century
Wilkins retired as executive director in 1977 and was replaced by Benjamin L. Hooks, whose
tenure included the Bakke case (1978), in which a California court outlawed several aspects of
affirmative action. During his tenure the Memphis native is credited with implementing many
NAACP programs that continue today. The NAACP ACT-SO (Academic, Cultural,
Technological and Scientific Olympics) competitions, a major youth talent and skill initiative,
and Women in the NAACP began under his administration.
As millions of African Americans continued to be afflicted as urban poverty and crime
increased, de facto racial segregation remained and job discrimination lingered throughout the
United States, proving the need for continued NAACP advocacy and action.
Dr. Hooks served as executive director/chief executive officer (CEO) of the NAACP from 1977
to 1992. Benjamin F. Chavis (now Chavis Muhammad) became executive director/CEO in 1993,
while in 1995 Myrlie Evers-Williams (widow of Medgar Evers) became the third woman to chair
the NAACP, a position she held until 1998, succeeded by Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond.
9|Page
NAACP History (Continued)
In 1996 the NAACP National Board of Directors changed the executive director/CEO title to
president and CEO when it selected Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman and head of the
Congressional Black Caucus, to lead the body. The elected office of president was eliminated.
Former telecommunications executive Bruce S. Gordon followed in 2005. [NAACP General
Counsel Dennis Courtland Hayes would serve the Association well as interim national president
and CEO twice during changes in administrations in recent years.]
In May 2008, the NAACP National Board of Directors confirmed Benjamin Todd Jealous, a
former community organizer, newspaper editor and Rhodes Scholar, as the 14th national
executive of the esteemed organization.
Heading into the 21st century, the NAACP is focused on disparities in economics, health care,
education, voter empowerment and the criminal justice system while also continuing its role as
legal advocate for civil rights issues. In the past few years the NAACP has tackled important
issues, including: racism in the political sphere; over incarceration and the failure of the “War on
Drugs”; high rates of unemployment in communities of color; attacks on organized labor; voter
suppression efforts in states across the country; the Troy Davis case and bias in the application of
the death penalty; racial profiling and the tragedy of Trayvon Martin; and marriage equality.
Yet the real story of the nation's most significant civil rights organization lies in the hearts and
minds of the people who would not stand idly by while the rights of America's darker citizens
were denied. From bold investigations of mob brutality, protests of mass murders, segregation
and discrimination, to testimony before congressional committees on the vicious tactics used to
bar African Americans from the ballot box, it was the talent and tenacity of NAACP members
that saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society.
While much of NAACP history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets and magazines, the
true movement lies in the faces--the diverse multiracial army of ordinary women and men from
every walk of life, race and class--united to awaken the consciousness of a people and a nation.
The NAACP will remain vigilant in its mission until the promise of America is made real for all
Americans.
10 | P a g e
Roslyn M. Brock
Chairman of the National Board of Directors
Roslyn M. Brock is Chairman of the National Board of Directors for
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). She made history in February 2010 when she was
unanimously elected the 14th Chairman of the NAACP’s National
Board. She is the youngest person and fourth woman to hold this
position.
Brock is employed as Vice President, Advocacy and Government
Relations for Bon Secours Health System, Inc., in Marriottsville,
Maryland. Prior to working at Bon Secours, Brock worked 10 years in Health Programs at the
W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.
She graduated magna cum laude from Virginia Union University; earned a master's degree in
health services administration from George Washington University, an MBA from the Kellogg
School of Management at Northwestern University and a Master of Divinity degree from the
Samuel DeWitt Proctor Theology at Virginia Union University. In May 2010, she received an
honorary doctorate degree from Virginia Union University.
Brock has been a servant leader with the NAACP for more than twenty five years. She is a
Diamond Life Member of NAACP and joined the Association as a freshman at Virginia Union
University where she was elected President of the Youth and College Division from the
Commonwealth of Virginia. One year later, she was elected as a Youth Board Member from
Region 7 representing the District of Columbia, Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
During her tenure as a Youth Board Member and Vice Chairman of the NAACP Board Health
Committee, Brock led the policy debate to recognize access to quality health care as a civil rights
issue. Her passion for health care resulted in the National Board’s ratification and inclusion of a
health committee as a standing committee in its constitution. In 1989, under the leadership of her
mentor Rev. Dr. Benjamin Lawson Hooks, Brock wrote the program manual for “Developing a
NAACP Health Outreach Program for Minorities.”
Brock is a skilled grant writer and has secured millions of dollars to support NAACP programs
that include health symposiums held annually at NAACP annual conventions; publication and
distribution of more than 200,000 copies of “HIV/AIDS and You” educational materials to
11 | P a g e
NAACP units; scholarly research, publication and public relations on the history of the NAACP;
ACT-SO and the NAACP Law Fellows program just to name a few.
Roslyn M. Brock (Continued)
From 1999-2010, Brock chaired the National Board’s convention planning committee. In this
role, she led the committee to institute fiscal policies that resulted in the annual convention
becoming a profit center for the Association with average net revenues of $1 million dollars a
year. She also chaired the organization’s Centennial Celebration Committee in 2009.
For nine years from 2001-2010 she served as Vice Chairman of the National Board. In 2005,
Brock created the NAACP Leadership 500 Summit with several other young adult members of
the Association. The Summit’s goal is to recruit, train and retain a new generation of civil rights
leaders aged 30 – 50 to the NAACP. Since its inception, Leadership 500 has contributed roughly
$700,000 to the NAACP to support its programs.
Brock is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Catholic Health Association of the United
States of America. She’s served on the boards of community mental health; family and children's
services; senior services and faith based community ministries. She is a member of several
professional and civic organizations including the American Public Health Association;
American College of Health Services Executives; American Hospital Association’s Disparities in
Healthcare Task group; Association of Healthcare Philanthropy; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority,
Inc., and The LINKS, Inc.
A recipient of numerous healthcare, community service and leadership awards, Brock’s
leadership skills have been recognized by several national publications and organizations. She
was featured in the September 2010 edition of Essence magazine among the “40 Fierce and
Fabulous Women Who Are Changing the World” and received the 2010 National Urban
League’s Women of Power Award. In April 2008, Brock participated in the U.S. Department of
Defense’s 75th Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC) reserved for American leaders
interested in expanding their knowledge of the military and national defense. She was a guest
lecturer on “Alleviating Global Poverty” in Rome, Italy at the 2007 Martin Luther King, Jr.
Conflict Resolution conference co-sponsored by the Lott Carey Foreign Missions and the Baptist
Union of Italy.
Other honors include: wrote the Foreword for the 2008 Edition of Who’s Who Among AfricanAmericans Directory; featured in December 2007 Forbes Magazine article on Diversity and
Economic Parity for African Americans; recipient of the Network Journal’s “40 Under Forty
Achievement Award” and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medal for Human Rights from the George
12 | P a g e
Washington University; cited as Outstanding Alumna from Virginia Union University; Honorary
Chairperson, National Black Family Summit; Ebony magazine’s “Future Leader Award”; and
Good Housekeeping’s “100 Young Women of Promise.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President and CEO
Benjamin Todd Jealous is the 17th President and CEO of the
NAACP. Appointed at age 35 in 2008, he is the youngest person to
lead the century old organization. During his tenure, the NAACP's
online activists have swelled from 175,000 to more than 600,000; its
donors have increased from 16,000 individuals per year to more than
120,000; and its membership has increased three years in a row for
the first time in more than 20 years.
Jealous began his career as a community organizer in Harlem in 1991
with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund while working his way through college. In 1993, after being
suspended for organizing student protests at Columbia University, he went to work as an
investigative reporter for Mississippi's frequently-firebombed Jackson Advocate newspaper.
Over past two decades, he has helped organize successful campaigns to abolish the death penalty for
children, stop Mississippi's governor from turning a public historically black university into a prison,
and pass federal legislation against prison rape. His journalistic investigations have been credited
with helping save the life of a white inmate who was being threatened for helping convict corrupt
prison guards, free a black small farmer who was being framed for arson, and spur official
investigations into law enforcement corruption.
A Rhodes Scholar, he is a graduate of Columbia and Oxford University, the past president of the
Rosenberg Foundation and served as the founding director of Amnesty International's US Human
Rights Program. While at Amnesty, he authored the widely-cited report: Threat and Humiliation-Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in the United States.
As President of the NAACP, he has opened national programs on education, health, and
environmental justice. He has also greatly increased the organization's capacity to work on issues
related to the economy and register and mobilize voters.
A fifth-generation member of the NAACP, Jealous comes from a long-line of American freedom
fighters. His mother, who descends from two black Reconstruction statesmen, desegregated
Baltimore's Western High School for Girls in 1954 as a member of the NAACP's Youth and College
Division. His father, who descends from a Revolutionary War soldier who fought at the Battle of
13 | P a g e
Bunker Hill and Sufragettes, was one of a small number of white men jailed during the Congress of
Racial Equality's efforts to desegregate Baltimore's downtown business district. He is married to Lia
Epperson Jealous, a civil rights lawyer and professor of constitutional law. They have two children
and live in Silver Spring, MD.
Leon W. Russell
Vice Chairman, NAACP Board of Directors
Leon W. Russell retired in January of 2012, after serving as the
Director of the Office of Human Rights for Pinellas County
Government, Clearwater, Florida. He had held this post since
January of 1977. In this position Mr. Russell was responsible for
implementing the county's Affirmative Action and Human Rights
Ordinances.
The Affirmative Action Ordinance provides for the development
of a racially and sexually diverse workforce that reflects the
general make up of the local civilian labor force. This includes the implementation of the
county's Equal Employment opportunity Programs. Programs involved in the implementation of
this ordinance cover employees in all the departments under the County Administrator and the
five Constitutional Officers.
The Pinellas County Human Rights Ordinance provides protection from illegal discrimination in
housing, employment and public accommodations for the county's 923,000 residents. This
ordinance has been deemed "substantially equivalent" to Title VIII of the 1968 Federal Fair
Housing Act and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Over five hundred formal complaints of
discrimination are filed under the ordinance annually.
In September of 2007, Mr. Russell was elected President of the International Association of
Official Human Rights Agencies during its annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The IAOHRA
Membership is agency based and consists of statutory human and civil rights agencies from
throughout the United States and Canada as well as representation from several other nations.
These agencies enforce state and local civil rights laws and are actively engaged in reducing and
resolving intergroup tension and promoting intergroup relations. Mr. Russell concluded his
second term as IAOHRA President at the conclusion of the IAOHRA Annual conference in
Austin, Texas in September of 2011.
Mr. Russell served as the President of the Florida State Conference of Branches of the NAACP
from January 1996 until January 2000, after serving for fifteen years as the First Vice President.
14 | P a g e
He has served as a member of the National Board of Directors of the NAACP 1990. He has
served that board as the assistant secretary and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the National
Board. He is a member of the International City Management Association; a member of the
National Forum for Black Public Administrators; member of the Board of Directors of the
Leon W. Russell (Continued)
Children's Campaign of Florida; past Board Member of the Pinellas Opportunity Council, past
President and Board Member of the National Association of Human Rights Workers; member of
the Blueprint Commission on Juvenile Justice with responsibility for recommending reforms to
improve the juvenile justice system in the state of Florida.
Mr. Russell also served as the Chairman of Floridians Representing Equity and Equality. FREE
was established as a statewide coalition to oppose the Florida Civil Rights Initiative, an antiAffirmative Action proposal authored by Ward Connerly. Ultimately, the initiative failed to get
on the Florida Ballot, because of the strong legal challenge spearheaded by FREE.
Mr. Russell has received numerous civic awards and citations.
15 | P a g e
16 | P a g e
Julian Bond
Chairman Emeritus, National Board of Directors
Horace Julian Bond is a leader of the American Civil Rights
Movement. While a student at Morehouse College in
Atlanta, he helped found the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) He was elected Board
Chairman of the NAACP in 1998.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Bond's family moved to
Pennsylvania when he was five years old when his father,
Horace Mann Bond, became the first African American
President of Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), his alma
mater. Bond attended Morehouse College in Atlanta and won a varsity letter for swimming. He
also founded a literary magazine called The Pegasus and served as an intern at Time magazine.
In 1960, Bond was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and served as communications director from 1961 to 1966. From 1960 to 1963, he led
student protests against segregation in public facilities in Georgia.
Bond graduated from Morehouse and helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
He was the organization's president from 1971 to 1979.
Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965. White members of the House
refused to seat him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1966, the United States
Supreme Court ruled that the House had denied Bond his freedom of speech and had to seat him.
From 1965 to 1975, he served in the Georgia House and served six terms in the Georgia Senate
from 1975-86.
In 1968, Bond led a challenge delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago, and was the first African-American nominated as Vice President of the United
States. He withdrew his name from the ballot because he was too young to serve.
Bond ran for the United States House of Representatives, but lost to civil rights leader John
Lewis. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Bond taught at several universities, including American, Drexel,
Williams, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard universities and the University of
Virginia.
17 | P a g e
Julian Bond (Continued)
Bond continues with his activism as Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP, after serving 11 years as
Chair, and working to educate the public about the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the
struggles that African Americans. He is President Emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
He hosted "America's Black Forum" from 1980 until 1997.
He also served as a commentator for radio's Byline and for NBC's Today Show. He authored the
nationally-syndicated newspaper column Viewpoint. He narrated the critically acclaimed PBS
series Eyes on the Prize in 1987 and 1990, a documentary on the life of New York Congressman
Adam Clayton Powell.
He has published A Time To Speak, A Time To Act, a collection of his essays, as well as Black
Candidates Southern Campaign Experiences. His poems and articles have appeared in several
magazines and newspapers.
Bond recently retired as the Distinguished Visiting Professor at American University in
Washington, D.C., and a Professor in the history department at the University of Virginia. He has
received 25 honorary degrees.
18 | P a g e
Myrlie Evers-Williams
Chairman Emeritus, National Board of Directors
Mrs. Myrlie Evers-Williams is a phenomenal woman of great
strength and courage. Her dedication to civil rights and equality
is exemplified by her activist role, linking together business,
government, and social issues to further human rights and
equality. On February 18, 1995, she was elected to the position
of Chairman of the National Board of Directors of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
With the support of a strong member base of the NAACP, she is
credited with spearheading the operations that restored the
Association to its original status as the premier civil rights
organization.
A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mrs. Evers-Williams was an honor student at Alcorn A & M
College, Lorman, Mississippi, where she met and married another outstanding student, Medgar
Evers. They moved to historic Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where they embarked on business
careers with Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Business responsibilities demanded
extensive travel in the Delta where they witnessed the burden of poverty and injustice imposed
on their people. Determined to make positive changes in that society, both Medgar and Myrlie
opened and managed the first NAACP Mississippi State Office. They lived under constant
threats as they worked for voting rights, economic stability, fair housing, equal education, equal
justice, and dignity.
A true pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, Medgar Evers was assassinated on June 12, 1963.
Myrlie and their three small children saw the murder at the front door of their home in Jackson,
Mississippi. After suffering through two hung jury trials in the murder of her husband, Mrs.
Evers-Williams moved her three children to California. She did not see justice for the murder of
Medgar Evers until 31 years later. In 1994, she was present when the verdict of guilty and life
imprisonment was handed down for Byron De La Beckwith. At last, she was victorious, Her
persistence and faith in the pursuit of justice for the assassination that changed her life and that
of her children had come to fruition.
Myrlie knew the value of education. She received her B.A. degree in Sociology in 1968 and a
Certificate from Simmons College, School of Management, Boston, Massachusetts. In addition,
she has received honorary doctorates from Pomona College, Medgar Evers College, Spelman
19 | P a g e
Myrlie Evers-Williams (Continued)
College, Columbia College, Bennett College, Tougaloo College, Willamette University, Howard
University and others.
She has held the position of Director, Planning and Development for the Claremont College; first
African-American woman to serve as Commissioner, Board of Public Works, Los Angeles,
California; vice president, Seligman & Latz; and national director of consumer affairs, Atlantic
Richfield. She chronicled the life of her late husband, Medgar, and the civil rights struggle in
Mississippi in a book, For Us, the Living. She also anchored a special HBO production,
"Southern Justice, the Murder of Medgar Evers.
Myrlie Evers-Williams was married for 18 years to Walter Edward Williams, himself a civil
rights activist until his death two days after she was elected chairman of the board of the
NAACP.
On February 10, 1998, Evers-Williams announced that she had successfully completed her
mission and would not seek another term of office but would devote her efforts to establishing
the Medgar Evers Institute, linking business, government, and communities to further human
rights and equality.
In 1999 Evers-Williams saw her latest book, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to
Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be, published. In the bestseller I Dream A World: Black
Women Who Changed America, Evers-Williams says that she "greets today and the future with
open arms." This credo has carried her through years of struggle and success.
Her children and six grandchildren remain her strongest supporters in her continued fight to
secure equal rights for all people, and to preserve those rights for future generations.
20 | P a g e
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
2011-2012
21 | P a g e
Digital Age Drives Rally to Keep a Georgia Inmate From Execution
By Kim Severson
New York Times
September 16, 2011
ATLANTA — As Troy Davis faces his fourth execution date, the effort to save him has come to
rival the most celebrated death row campaigns in recent history.
On Monday, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles will give Mr. Davis what is by all
accounts his last chance to avoid death by lethal injection, scheduled for Wednesday.
Whether history will ultimately judge Mr. Davis guilty or innocent, cultural and legal observers
will be left to examine why Mr. Davis, convicted of killing a Savannah police officer, Mark
MacPhail, 22 years ago, has been catapulted to the forefront of the national conversation when
most of the 3,251 other people on death row in the United States have not.
The answer, experts say, can be found in an amalgam of changing death penalty politics,
concerns about cracks in the judicial system, the swift power of digital political organizing and,
simply, a story with a strong narrative that caught the public’s attention.
“Compelling cases that make us second-guess our justice system have always struck a chord with
the American public,” said Benjamin T. Jealous, president of the N.A.A.C.P.
“Some are simply more compelling in that they seem to tap deeply into the psyche of this
country. A case like this suggests that our justice system is flawed.”
22 | P a g e
Like others involved in the case, he credits Mr. Davis’s sister, Martina Correia, a media-friendly
former soldier who has long argued that the police simply got the wrong man, with keeping the
story alive.
And the story has been compelling. A parade of witnesses have recanted since the original trial,
and new testimony suggests the prosecution’s main witness might be the killer.
There are racial undertones — Mr. Davis is black and the victim was white — and legal
cliffhangers, including a stay in 2008 that came with less than 90 minutes to spare and a Hail
Mary pass in 2009 that resulted in a rare Supreme Court decision.
Altogether, it had the makings of a story that has grabbed many armchair lawyers and even the
most casual opponent of the death penalty.
The list of people asking that the Georgia parole board offer clemency has grown from the
predictable (Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Indigo Girls) to the surprising,
including 51 members of Congress, entertainment heavyweights like Cee Lo Green and death
penalty supporters including William S. Sessions, a former F.B.I. director, and Bob Barr, a
former member of Congress, and some leaders in the Southern Baptist church. (Unlike some
other states, in Georgia the governor cannot commute a death sentence; only the parole board
can.)
Propelled by a recent flood of digital media including Twitter traffic and online petition requests,
the case has become fodder for discussion in fashionable Atlanta bistros, Harlem street corners
and anywhere living room sleuths gather in their search for another Casey Anthony trial to
dissect.
On Friday, about 1,000 people marched to Ebenezer Baptist Church here for a prayer vigil, one
of hundreds of rallies being organized by Amnesty International around the world.
The facts of the case itself captured the attention of Nancie McDermott, a North Carolina
cookbook author who usually spends her time in the kitchen but who took up the cause with a
passion once she started reading about it on liberal Web sites.
“I think if my brother or son or dear friend from college were about to be put to death, and there
was no physical evidence, and seven of nine witnesses had recanted and testified to coercion in
that original testimony, would I shrug and say, ‘The jury made its decision?’ ” she wrote in an email. “I just want people, particularly all the churchgoing people like me, to look me in the eye
and tell me, just once, that this is justice.”
There are some larger political themes weaving through the case.
23 | P a g e
As executions becomes less common and sentences for executions decline — dropping to about
100 a year from three times that in the 1990s — the focus on execution as a means of
punishment and a marker of the nation’s cultural and political divide becomes sharper, legal
analysts said.
That divide results in a culture that in the same week can generate hundreds of thousands of
letters of support for Troy Davis and, conversely, bring a cheering round of applause from the
audience at a Republican presidential debate when Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was asked about the
234 executions in his state during his term of office.
“We’ve gotten to a critical point in the death penalty in this country,” said Ferrel Guillory, a
professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of North Carolina. “These
cases are being phased out but at the same time they don’t make the front page anymore, so
when one comes along with a strong narrative and a good advocate, it gets our attention.”
Sister Helen Prejean's work with two death row inmates -- Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee
Willie -- in the final phase of their lives brought “dead man walking” into popular lexicon after
Hollywood released a film version of her work in 1995.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former journalist and Black Panther who was convicted of shooting a
white Philadelphia police officer in 1981, rode the power of his own charisma. His case became
so popular globally that a road in a Parisian suburb bears his name.
Mr. Davis’s case not only offers a good narrative with strong characters people can relate to —
his father was a law enforcement officer, his mother was a churchgoer, his sister is fighting both
cancer and for her brother’s innocence — but has also benefited from an explosion in social
media.
“Back in 2007, nobody outside of Savannah knew who Troy Davis was,” said Laura Moye,
director of Amnesty International U.S.A.’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. “Now it’s safe to
say over a million people do.”
For proof, she offers the 633,000 petitions she and others delivered to the parole board in an
elaborate media event on Friday. About 200,000 of them were electronic signatures gathered by
Change.org in less than a week.
“It’s a new era of activism,” she said.
Online organizing drew Anderia Bishop, 37, of Atlanta, to the case last week. She learned about
Mr. Davis through an e-mail from ColorOfChange.org, a black political organization.
The fact that there was very little physical evidence and no DNA and a case built largely on
witnesses who changed their story got her attention.
“I thought, literally, it could be me, and that’s something a lot of people who are casually
watching this case think,” she said. “There are just too many questions.”
24 | P a g e
But public pressure and intense media attention can cut both ways, said Stephen Bright, president
of the Southern Center for Human Rights and a longtime capital defense lawyer.
“It certainly heightens the attention a case gets, but there also can be some defensiveness,” he
said. “There has historically been that worry that people from out of state will come in and not
understand what really happened.”
The difference, he said, is that in today’s information-rich age, people around the world actually
do know most of the facts in the case.
“It tells the State of Georgia that the whole world is watching,” he said.
25 | P a g e
Saving Troy Davis' Life: NAACP Speaks Out
By Jenee Desmond-Harris
The Root
September 14, 2011
Today NAACP President and
CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous
spoke out about the
organization's continuing
advocacy on behalf of Troy
Davis, a black man facing
imminent execution by lethal
injection by the state of
Georgia, despite troubling
evidence of his innocence.
Davis was convicted of
murdering a police officer in 1991. Since then the case against him has fallen apart: Seven of the
nine original witnesses against Troy have recanted or contradicted their testimony, and three of
those witnesses now claim that their testimony was coerced. The physical evidence against him
was discredited and withdrawn.
"This is a case of the utmost importance," Jealous said on a call with reporters Wednesday
afternoon. "This case had lingered on Georgia death row for more than two decades because the
case against Troy stinks."
Still, the Georgia courts have refused to consider new evidence that many believe would free an
innocent man. On Sept. 19 Davis will face his Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles hearing
before his scheduled Sept. 21 execution date.
The NAACP is urging the board to grant him clemency.
"We're doing everything we can to ensure they get the message loud and clear that this is a case
of extreme injustice and they need to ensure that further injustice is not done," Jealous said. "We
will be there on Monday when the Board of Pardons and Paroles meets. We are praying that they
do the right thing. And if not, we will be there on Wednesday when they put him to death."
26 | P a g e
The NAACP is far from alone in its belief that Davis' execution would be a grave injustice, says
Jealous. "We are very focused on ensuring that the Board of Pardons and Parole hears from a
wide range of voices so that they understand the seriousness of the task in front of them," he
explained, adding that the organization is heartened that a number of leading conservatives have
come forward in Davis' defense. That's in addition to Amnesty International, the American Civil
Liberties Union, former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the pope.
Jealous described the "palpable essence and aura of tragedy" he felt during a recent prison visited
with Davis, who hasn't been allowed to speak to the media. "He talked about how frustrated he
was that he was still in the same situation 22 years later, telling the same story of his innocence,"
Jealous said. "He talked about having all his books and papers taken away from him, being
forced to write with the simple ink cartridge of a ballpoint pen, fearing his execution ... Despite
the fact that seven out of the nine witnesses who put him on death row are now admitting that
they lied, he's still there."
Only three of the five board members' votes are needed to save Davis' life. "We're fighting hard
for each vote, and prayerful that three out of the five men and women on this board will have the
courage to do the right thing, Jealous said. "But it will be a nail biter, right down to the last
minute."
And if they don't do the "right thing"? The NAACP president insists the fight won't be over,
saying, "If they choose to execute Troy Davis for a crime of which we believe he is innocent -and they have no reason to suspect otherwise -- we will make sure they world knows his name
and that we don't forget this case ... we're going to make sure the country and the world
remember his name."
27 | P a g e
Thousands March Silently to Protest Stop-and-Frisk Policies
By John Leland and Colin Moynahan
New York Times
June 17
In a slow, somber procession, several thousand demonstrators conducted a silent march on
Sunday down Fifth Avenue to protest the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policies,
which the organizers say single out minority groups and create an atmosphere of martial law for
the city’s black and Latino residents.
Two and a half hours after it began, the peaceful, disciplined march ended in mild disarray. As
many marchers dispersed, police officers at 77th Street and Fifth Avenue began pushing a crowd
that defied orders to leave the intersection, shoving some to the ground and forcing the protesters
to a sidewalk, where they were corralled behind metal barricades. After protesters pushed back,
the officers used an orange net to clear the sidewalk, and appeared to arrest at least three people.
The presence of several elected officials at the march, including the Democratic mayoral
hopefuls Bill de Blasio, the public advocate; Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott
M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president; and William C. Thompson, the former city
comptroller, seemed to signal a solidifying opposition to the policy, which has long been
opposed by civil rights groups.
Wade Cummings, 46, a teacher, attended with his 19-year-old son, Tarik. Both said they had
been stopped by police officers — once for the father, three times for the son.
“I’m concerned about him being stopped and it escalating,” the father said. “I like to believe I
taught him not to escalate this situation, but you never know how it’s going to go down.”
Police officers stopped nearly 700,000 people last year, 87 percent of them black or Latino. Of
those stopped, more than half were also frisked.
The protest, which began at 3 p.m., followed recent remarks by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
that he planned to scale back and amend the practice, amid escalating protests.
“It’s clear that the mayor and police commissioner are hearing the message,” said Leslie Cagan,
one of the march’s organizers. “They’re taking steps that might be small improvements, but
what’s really needed is a stopping of stop-and-frisk. Many cities have had significant reductions
of crime without it.”
28 | P a g e
Mr. Bloomberg has argued that stop-and-frisk gets guns off the street and reduces crime. The
march, which stretched for about 20 blocks, ended at East 78th Street, a block from the mayor’s
residence.
Demonstrators mostly adhered to the organizers’ call to march in silence, hushing talkers along
the route. Members of labor unions and the N.A.A.C.P. appeared to predominate, but there were
also student groups, Occupy Wall Street, Common Cause, the Universal Zulu Nation and the
Answer Coalition. A group of Quakers carried a banner criticizing the stop-and-frisk practice;
other signs read, “Skin Color Is Not Reasonable Suspicion” and “Stop & Frisk: The New Jim
Crow.”
As of Friday, 299 organizations had endorsed the march, including unions, religious groups and
Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arab, and Jewish groups. The turnout reflected the growing alliance
between civil rights groups and gay and lesbian activists, who in past years have often kept each
other at arm’s length. Last month, the board of the N.A.A.C.P., which includes several church
leaders, voted to endorse same-sex marriage. The roster of support for the march on Sunday
included at least 28 gay, lesbian and transgender groups.
Chris Bilal, 24, who is black and gay, said he had been stopped three times, the last time while
dancing with two friends in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. “Sometimes I’m targeted as a drug
dealer, sometimes as someone interfering with the quality of life, sometimes as a gay AfricanAmerican man in a place I don’t belong,” he said. The idea for the demonstration took root three
months ago in Selma, Ala., after a commemoration of the 1965 civil rights march there, said
Benjamin Todd Jealous, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., who met there with the Rev. Al
Sharpton and George Gresham, president of 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East.
Mr. Jealous rejected the argument set forward by Mr. Bloomberg and the police commissioner,
Raymond W. Kelly, that stop-and-frisk policing reduced crime and improved the quality of life
in black and Latino neighborhoods.
“Stop-and-frisk is a political tool, victimizing one group of people so another group feels
protected,” Mr. Jealous said. “It’s humiliating hundreds of thousands of people.”
According to a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union, during the 10 years of the
Bloomberg administration, the police have performed 4,356,927 stops, including 685,724 last
year. Among African-American males ages 14 to 24, the number of stops last year was greater
than their total population.
One man who held a sign that read “Stop Racial Profiling” said he came to Central Park to relax
but decided to join the march because of his own experiences with the police.
“It happened to me about 10 times,” said the man, Bruce Fitzgerald, 48, of the Bronx.
Seeking a contrast to some recent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, organizers called for a
disciplined, orderly march, with no clashes with the police. Though protesters did not have a
29 | P a g e
permit, organizers said that their talks with the police had been cordial and cooperative, and that
they did not expect conflict.
“This policy did not emanate from the rank-and-file police officers, and we’re not protesting
them,” said Mr. Gresham, who was arrested at an Occupy protest in November. “We’re not
going to the police commissioner’s home. We’re going to the mayor’s home, because he is the
guardian of New York.”
But along the mayor’s street, the police used metal barricades to close the sidewalks and turned
away pedestrians, including those unconnected to the march. For the second consecutive Sunday,
Mr. Bloomberg took to the pulpit at a predominantly African-American church in Brooklyn and
defended the stop-and-frisk program, saying it needed to be “mended, not ended.”
Speaking at the Christian Cultural Center, he told parishioners that violent crime had dropped
during his tenure in office, in part because of the practice. But he acknowledged that the police
could handle the interactions with more courtesy.
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you deserve nothing but respect and courtesy from the police,”
Mr. Bloomberg said. “Police Commissioner Kelly and I both believe we can do a better job in
this area — and he’s instituted a number of reforms to do that.”
At the end of the march, Mr. Jealous, who walked with his 6-year-old daughter, Morgan, on his
shoulders, said the silence conveyed the seriousness of the demonstrators.
30 | P a g e
Trayvon Martin: NAACP Rally Draws Thousands To Florida
Associated Press
April 1
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Thousands joined a march Saturday through the Florida town where
17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, vowing to
continue protesting until an arrest is made.
Protesters carried signs, chanted “Justice for Trayvon,” and clutched the hands of their children
while they walked to the Sanford Police Department from a local high school that served black
students during the segregation era. The march was organized by the NAACP was one of several
taking place over the weekend.
“We live in the middle of an American paradox,” Rev. Al Sharpton told the crowd. “We can put
a black man in the White House but we cannot walk a black child through a gated neighborhood.
We are not selling out, bowing out or backing down until there is justice for Trayvon.”
Martin was shot to death by 28-year-old George Zimmerman on Feb. 26 as he walked from a
convenience store back to his father’s fiancée’s home in a gated community outside Orlando.
The case has stirred a national conversation about race and the laws of self-defense. Martin, a
black teenager from Miami, was unarmed when he was shot by Zimmerman, whose father is
white and mother is Hispanic. Zimmerman told police the teen attacked him before he shot in
self-defense.
Sharpton and other civil rights leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, spoke during a two-hour
rally following the half-mile march.
“This is not about a hoodie, it’s about racial profiling,” Jackson said. “We will use our marching
feet, civil disobedience and every weapon in in our non-violent arsenal until justice is served.”
A dozen buses from across the state brought protesters to the rally. Shirley Roulhac-Lumpkin
came with a group from Miami Gardens.
“I come from an era where people wore white hoods and nobody arrested the KKK,” RoulhacLumpkin said. “Wearing a hoodie does not mean you’re a hoodlum.”
Gary Marion, a nurse who grew up in Sanford, said the Sanford police department is known “as
a good ol’ boy network and this incident sends a message that our children are worth nothing. I
would like to see the chief of police charged with obstruction of justice.”
31 | P a g e
Most of the protesters wore T-shirts with images of Trayvon Martin and many carried handmade
posters with messages that read, “Hoodies Don’t Kill People, Guns Kill People” and “Mother’s
Tears Have No Color.”
“We come to make sense of this great tragedy and the entire world grieves with us,” said Roslyn
Brock, who chairs the national board of directors for the NAACP. “When the Sanford police did
not arrest George Zimmerman, they essentially placed the burden of proof on a dead young man
who cannot speak for himself.”
32 | P a g e
NAACP backs same-sex marriage as civil right during national
board meeting in Miami
The Associated Press
May 20, 2012
MIAMI (AP) — The NAACP passed a resolution Saturday endorsing same-sex marriage as a
civil right and opposing any efforts "to codify discrimination or hatred into the law."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's board voted at a leadership
retreat in Miami to back a resolution supporting marriage equality, calling the position consistent
with the equal protection provision of the U.S. Constitution.
"The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure political, social and economic equality of
all people," Board Chairwoman Roslyn M. Brock said in a statement. "We have and will oppose
efforts to codify discrimination into law."
Same-sex marriage is legal in six states and the District of Columbia, but 31 states have passed
amendments to ban it.
The NAACP vote came about two weeks after President Barack Obama announced his support
for gay marriage, setting off a flurry of political activity in a number of states. Obama's
announcement followed Vice President Joe Biden's declaration in a television interview that he
was "absolutely comfortable" with gay couples marrying.
"Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law. The NAACP's support for marriage
equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and
equal protection of all people" said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, a strong backer of
gay rights.
Gay marriage has divided the black community, with many religious leaders opposing it. In
California, exit polls showed about 70 percent of blacks opposed same-sex marriage in 2008. In
Maryland, black religious leaders helped derail a gay marriage bill last year. But state lawmakers
passed a gay marriage bill this year.
Pew Research Center polls have found that African Americans have become more supportive of
same-sex marriage in recent years, but remain less supportive than other groups. A poll
conducted in April showed 39 percent of African-Americans favor gay marriage, compared with
47 percent of whites. The poll showed 49 percent of blacks and 43 percent of whites are
opposed.
The Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights advocacy group, applauded the step by the
Baltimore-based civil rights organization.
33 | P a g e
"We could not be more pleased with the NAACP's history-making vote today — which is yet
another example of the traction marriage equality continues to gain in every community," HRC
President Joe Solmonese said in a statement.
34 | P a g e
The NAACP returns to relevance with a vote on same-sex marriage
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
May 21
WASHINGTON – With its support for gay marriage, the NAACP has done more than strike a
blow for fairness and equality. The nation’s most venerable civil rights organization has made
itself relevant again.
The NAACP’s 64-member board approved a resolution Saturday supporting “marriage equality”
not as a matter of empathy or compassion but as a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. In
citing this rationale, the 103-year-old organization founded by W.E.B. Du Bois firmly linked the
campaign for gay rights to the epic African-American struggle for freedom and justice.
The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, overturned the atrocious Dred Scott ruling and
guaranteed full citizenship rights to black Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The
amendment’s language mandating equal protection under the law provided the basis for the
Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that ended segregation in public
schools.
“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous
said in a statement. That’s about as clear as you can get.
Those tempted to see the NAACP’s stance as purely symbolic haven’t read the fine print. The
resolution approved Saturday commits the organization to “oppose any national, state, local
policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to
remove the constitutional rights of LGBT citizens.”
This goes well beyond President Obama’s recent announcement that while he now supports
marriage rights for gays and lesbians, he believes the granting or withholding of those rights
should be left up to the states. Perhaps the evolution of the president’s view will continue.
I can’t think of anyone more likely to be disheartened by the NAACP’s bold move than the
Republican strategists who thought they had found an issue that could weaken Obama’s solid
and enthusiastic African-American political support. Polls have shown that black Democrats are
35 | P a g e
less supportive than white Democrats of gay marriage. With some black clergy taking an active
role in the fight against marriage equality – and, from the pulpit, urging their parishioners to do
the same – it looked as if Obama might be out of step with what is perhaps his most loyal
constituency.
But the NAACP board, which has struggled with the issue over the years, approved the
resolution supporting marriage equality by what was reported to be a nearly unanimous vote.
Gay marriage is also supported by such lions of the civil rights movement as the Rev. Jesse
Jackson, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and former NAACP chairman Julian Bond – all of whom draw
a direct line between the battle waged by black Americans in the 1960s and the battle being
waged by gay Americans today.
It is possible to make this linkage while at the same time acknowledging that no two liberation
struggles are exactly the same. Important distinctions – for example, the fact that only black
people were enslaved – should not obscure the principle that equal protection under the law
means just that.
The NAACP’s 64-member board approved a resolution Saturday supporting “marriage equality”
not as a matter of empathy or compassion but as a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. In
citing this rationale, the 103-year-old organization founded by W.E.B. Du Bois firmly linked the
campaign for gay rights to the epic African-American struggle for freedom and justice.
The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, overturned the atrocious Dred Scott ruling and
guaranteed full citizenship rights to black Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The
amendment’s language mandating equal protection under the law provided the basis for the
Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that ended segregation in public
schools.
“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous
said in a statement. That’s about as clear as you can get.
Those tempted to see the NAACP’s stance as purely symbolic haven’t read the fine print. The
resolution approved Saturday commits the organization to “oppose any national, state, local
policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to
remove the constitutional rights of LGBT citizens.”
This goes well beyond President Obama’s recent announcement that while he now supports
marriage rights for gays and lesbians, he believes the granting or withholding of those rights
should be left up to the states. Perhaps the evolution of the president’s view will continue.
I can’t think of anyone more likely to be disheartened by the NAACP’s bold move than the
Republican strategists who thought they had found an issue that could weaken Obama’s solid
and enthusiastic African-American political support.
36 | P a g e
Polls have shown that black Democrats are less supportive than white Democrats of gay
marriage. With some black clergy taking an active role in the fight against marriage equality –
and, from the pulpit, urging their parishioners to do the same – it looked as if Obama might be
out of step with what is perhaps his most loyal constituency.
But the NAACP board, which has struggled with the issue over the years, approved the
resolution supporting marriage equality by what was reported to be a nearly unanimous vote.
Gay marriage is also supported by such lions of the civil rights movement as the Rev. Jesse
Jackson, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and former NAACP chairman Julian Bond – all of whom draw
a direct line between the battle waged by black Americans in the 1960s and the battle being
waged by gay Americans today.
It is possible to make this linkage while at the same time acknowledging that no two liberation
struggles are exactly the same. Important distinctions – for example, the fact that only black
people were enslaved – should not obscure the principle that equal protection under the law
means just that.
Lewis, who still bears the scars he received while marching from Selma to Montgomery, once
wrote: “I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the
distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and
bigotry.”
In his statement, Jealous emphasized that the NAACP is talking about civil marriage, not
religious marriage. The group affirmed its recognition of “the religious freedoms of all people as
protected by the First Amendment.” No church should be forced to perform a same-sex marriage.
But the local justice of the peace should have to view a gay couple as being no different from a
heterosexual couple.
The biggest immediate impact of the NAACP’s move is to return a once-indispensable
organization to center stage. The NAACP was the flagship of the civil rights movement, but in
recent years – recent decades, to be honest – it seemed to lose its way. The group continued to do
good work, but to the extent that it sought to identify some sort of umbrella “black agenda,” it
failed as black America became increasingly diverse.
Now, under Jealous, the NAACP has waded into the civil rights battle of today – and, in the
process, reclaimed some of the organization’s old prominence. I can’t remember the last time an
NAACP resolution garnered so much attention around the nation and the world. I can’t wait for
the next one.
37 | P a g e
NAACP wants new voting laws struck down
By Suzanne Gamboa
The Associated Press (printed in Washington Post, CBSNews.com, NewsOne.com, Salon.com,
San Jose Mercury News, San Diego Union-Tribune, Macon Telegraph, Austin-American
Statesman, NC News & Observer, Bloomington Pentagraph, GOPUSA.com)
December 5, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — The NAACP has been collecting information about early voting
advocacy by black churches in Florida, hoping to convince the Justice Department to strike down
a slew of new state voting laws it claims are intended to thwart growing minority participation at
the polls ahead of next year's presidential election.
In a report released Monday, the NAACP argues that the new laws amount to a coordinated and
comprehensive assault on minorities' voting rights at a time when their numbers in the
population and at the ballot box have increased.
NAACP President Ben Jealous said he personally delivered a copy of the report over the
weekend to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, who oversees the agency's civil rights
division. Jealous said the NAACP wants to diligently document how the laws affect African
Americans and Latinos, and provide the attorney general ample evidence for finding the laws
unconstitutional.
Several states have passed laws requiring voters to present specific types of photo identification
and proof of citizenship to vote; creating new rules for voter registration drives; reducing early
voting days and voter registration periods; and further preventing ex-felons from voting. The
NAACP refers to these in its report as "block the vote" tactics.
"In some ways, these tactics are not Jim Crow. They do not feature Night Riders and sheets ...
This is in fact, James Crow, Esq.," said the Rev. William Barber, NAACP North Carolina
president and a pastor. " ... Jim Crow used blunt tools. James Crow, Esq. uses surgical tools,
consultants, high paid consultants and lawyers to cut out the heart of black political power."
For example, a law passed in Florida reduced its early voting period from 14 to 8 days, including
the last Sunday before Election Day.
In 2008, 54 percent of black voters in Florida cast their ballots early, and blacks comprised 32
percent of the entire statewide turnout on the last Sunday before the election, said Ryan
Haygood, director of political participation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund.
38 | P a g e
"It's widely known in Florida that black churches would organize what they called 'Get Your
Souls to the Polls' where they urged their members, after fulfilling their spiritual duties on
Sundays to discharge their civic ones by voting," Haygood said.
Florida's black and Latino populations grew during the past decade, inching it closer to being a
majority-minority state.
Jealous said the NAACP also will send its report to other federal agencies, secretaries of state
and attorneys general in the 50 states, congressional committees and the United Nations. The
NAACP holds special status with the U.N. that allows it to make presentations to a committee
overseeing race and discrimination.
Asked about the report, the Justice Department cited a copy of a speech Perez gave last
Thursday. In the written speech Perez said several of the states' laws are being reviewed for
compliance with protections for minority voting rights under the Voting Rights Act. Perez said
those states bear the burden of showing the new laws are not intentionally discriminatory and
will not have a retrogressive effect.
Supporters of the new laws, including at least one group funded by the billionaire brothers
Charles and David Koch, have said the new laws are designed to prevent voter fraud. Hans von
Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said voter
ID laws have wide support, including in the black community.
"It's hard for me to believe a serious group like the NAACP would come out to say there's some
grand conspiracy to deny people the right to vote," von Spakovsky said.
The NAACP has planned a protest march and rally that will start at the Koch brothers' offices in
New York on Saturday.
Besides Florida, other states that have new voting laws include Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas,
Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and
Wisconsin.
39 | P a g e
Protesters March To UN In "Stand For Freedom"
New York One
December 10, 2011
More than 100 civil rights groups marched from the Upper East Side to the headquarters of the
United Nations Saturday to call attention to the issue of voting rights. NY1’s Amanda Farinacci
filed the following report.
Protesters marched to the United Nations Saturday and spoke out against what the NAACP calls
an aggressive attack against voting rights across the country.
Laws either proposed or adopted in 34 states require prospective voters to provide extensive
documentation in order to get a voter ID card.
The protesters likened such laws to poll taxes and other tactics that were once used in the Jim
Crow south.
“If successful, these laws would disenfranchise well over five million voters. That's more people
than live in Manhattan, Bronx, and, I think, Staten Island put together, and that's not what
democracy should be about,” said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Union leaders, community activists, immigrant groups and elected officials gathered near the
headquarters of Koch Industries.
Those at the rally say the Koch brothers, who’ve donated millions to conservative and Tea Party
causes, are bankrolling efforts across the United States to change voter identification
requirements, bans on the formerly incarcerated and early voting periods.
“In Texas, you can vote with a gun license but not with a school ID, like a University of Texas
ID,” said Jesus Gonzalez of Make the Road New York.
Protesters say some of the documents the laws require are difficult and expensive to get, making
it harder for immigrants, senior citizens or students.
“This is a cross-racial, cross-cultural initiative to get together to basically protect the voting
rights of people of color, of people who've been undermined economically,” said Zead Ramadan
of CAIR New York.
Koch Industries says it has a long and steadfast track record of supporting voter registration
drives and the civil rights groups that do the same.
The firm says it is being targeted for political reasons.
40 | P a g e
NAACP Puts Voter ID Laws in Crosshairs
Before a South Carolina rally, its president told The Root of plans to fight the laws and educate
young black voters.
By Michael E. Ross
The Root
January 16, 2012
Regardless of the content of
their addresses Monday
morning at the annual "King
Day at the Dome" rally at the
State House in Columbia, S.C.,
the joint appearance of NAACP
President Benjamin Todd
Jealous and U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder speaks
volumes in and of itself.
Monday marks the first time
Holder will have been in the
Palmetto State since Dec. 23,
when the U.S. Department of
Justice struck down its new
voter photo ID law, which the DOJ says would likely have disenfranchised minorities, students
and disabled voters alike.
The optics of their joint appearance -- the leader of the nation's oldest and most storied civil
rights organization and the country's top law-enforcement officer -- send a signal about the
intent, through legal challenges and social advocacy, to make voting rights a high priority in an
already contentious election year. The rally takes place five days before the South Carolina
primary.
The United States is a nation with a patchwork of laws on voter identification -- some states with
strict policies, others with no policy at all. Thirty-one states require voters to show IDs before
voting. In 2011 eight states -- Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin -- enacted variations of the same rule, requiring some form of
photo identification. Critics of the laws argue that they disenfranchise voters of color and young
voters, who are less likely to possess and be able to afford the required identification.
41 | P a g e
In an interview with The Root before his South Carolina address, Jealous spoke about the
importance of the Justice Department action against South Carolina, the possible impact of new
voter ID laws and the strategies for blunting their potentially suppressive impact on voter turnout
in the 2012 election.
Jealous, who has appeared at previous King Day at the Dome rallies, noted that the 2012 event
takes place amid growing attention to voter ID laws in general, and specifically a tough new
immigration law enacted in South Carolina. A federal judge blocked some of that law's more
restrictive parts, such as allowing police and authorities to check the immigration status of any
suspect. But the amended measure -- widely seen as a copycat of Arizona's controversial
immigration law -- went into effect on Jan. 1, despite lawsuits by the Justice Department and
advocacy groups.
"This state, like so many others in the Deep South, has engaged in state-sponsored voter
suppression," Jealous said. "Two years ago we were dealing with a recession; what's different
this year is that the state has sought to focus special energy on suppressing voters of color. But
there's also been a ruthless attack here on migrant workers' rights. The attack on the rights of
immigrants will be a focus of my comments [Monday] and on this march."
Jealous had high marks for the DOJ in its overall efforts: "The Department of Justice has been on
the case in dealing with hate crimes, and the crime against humanity that is this voter ID law.
They've been focused and aggressive. The state of our nation and our Constitution is better off
for it."
Jealous said he'd meet with Attorney General Holder on Monday to discuss how the DOJ's move
in South Carolina might be exportable to other states with questionable voter ID laws. "We are
optimistic," Jealous said. "Texas' law is more egregious than South Carolina's. Mississippi is just
as bad, and Florida has serious issues as well. We're hopeful that what the Justice Department
has begun in South Carolina will impact other states as well."
The NAACP plans to mount its own challenges to voter ID laws nationally in the months before
the election, Jealous said. The organization has already called out South Carolina's law as "little
more than a 21st-century poll tax."
The voter ID battle will be joined in a relative handful of states for Jealous, who outlined a
strategy "for defending and expanding the electorate":
"In 2012 we will be fighting voter suppression legislation wherever it's introduced. We're
engaged in a number of states like Maine [where Republicans just reintroduced a voter ID bill
despite voters' rejection of a similar measure in November], but the really important states like
Virginia and Pennsylvania are also in play right now.
"Our biggest battle to stop suppression with voter ID bills is in two places. One is where bills
have already passed: Texas, South Carolina and so forth," he said. "The other part of the strategy
is to fight the legislative battles in states like Virginia and Pennsylvania, where bills are pending,
and in North Carolina, where the legislature has threatened to override the governor's veto of a
voter ID bill.
42 | P a g e
"We'll engage in very aggressive voter registration and identification drives designed to further
expand the electorate," Jealous said. "We'll make sure that those who need voter IDs get them."
One novel NAACP outreach initiative will seek out the youngest voters where they live.
Literally.
"We'll be mailing a voter registration form to every black kid in the nation who's turned 18 since
November 2010 or who will be 18 by November 2012," Jealous said. "At 18 they still see voting
as a part of a rite of passage, and about 600,000 black kids turn 18 every year." He estimated that
as many as 1.2 million younger African-American voters could be reached this way.
"Dr. King fought and died to make sure that our democracy is inclusive," Jealous said. "It's been
almost 50 years since Medgar Evers was assassinated. The reality is that many people have died
in many of our lifetimes to secure these votes. We fought in 2011; we won in some places, we
lost in some places. We'll continue fighting as aggressively as possible."
Michael E. Ross is a regular contributor to The Root and the author of American Bandwidth, on
the Obama campaign and presidency.
43 | P a g e
NAACP presses U.N. panel in Geneva on voting rights
Melanie Eversley, USA Today
March 14
The leadership of the United States' oldest and largest civil rights organization is in Geneva,
pressing a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council for help battling what the
organization views as forces attempting to push back voting rights.
Four leaders from the NAACP and two citizens who say their voting rights have been threatened
by laws requiring would-be voters to produce identification made statements before the meeting.
Thirty states have voter identification laws (a Wisconsin judge ruled this week that the state's law
is unconstitutional), and seven of them, not including Wisconsin, were enacted last year.
The NAACP has been campaigning against what it sees as a wave of new Voter ID laws being
pushed by states, and it released a report in December reviewing laws that have been passed in
recent years. Proponents of such laws say they are necessary to prevent identity fraud at the polls
and maintain that Americans should be used to the concept of having to produce identification to
perform certain tasks, such as applying for a job or buying a home.
Roslyn Brock, NAACP board chairwoman, said, "As of December 2011, 14 U.S. states passed
25 measures designed to restrict or limit ballot access of voters of color, threatening to
disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans. Furthermore, since January 2012, additional states
have introduced measures that, if enacted, would result in the disenfranchisement of even more
racial and ethnic minorities."
"We are here today because in the past 12 months, more U.S. states have passed more laws
pushing more U.S. citizens out of the ballot box than in any year in the past century," NAACP
President Ben Jealous said during the meeting. "Historically, when people have come after our
right to vote, they have done so to make it easier to come after so many of our other rights that
we hold dear."
During a conference call with reporters last week, Jealous said he hoped the NAACP
presentations would prod the U.N. body into taking some sort of action.
44 | P a g e
Civil rights groups launch voter registration drives earlier
By Melanie Eversley, USA Today
May 10
Voter registration among blacks is down from 2008, prompting the NAACP and other civil
rights organizations to launch registration drives two months earlier than in past presidential
election years.
Leaders of the NAACP and other groups blame the decline on new state laws requiring people to
produce identification toregister or placing limits on who can run a voter registration drive. They
also say the foreclosure and job crises have affected black Americans in large numbers.
Another likely factor, said Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on
Black Civic Participation: The excitement over the prospect of electing the first blackpresident
has faded.
The NAACP said registration by black voters is down almost 7 percentage points, based on 2010
Census figures.
The Obama-Biden re-election campaign says registration may be up since then in anticipation of
the coming election.
NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous said that increasing black voter registration is an
urgent concern.
"We're starting earlier, working harder, making more use of technology this year, because this
year we are witnessing the ugliest environment we have seen in a long time," Jealous said.
He and others say new state laws affecting voter registration are intended to sway the election
against Obama.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a New York University research organization, reports that since
the beginning of 2011, two states have enacted laws requiring proof of citizenship for registrants
andfour states have added requirements for groups conducting voter registration drives.
One measure in Florida calls for newly signed forms to be filed within 48 hours. One in Texas
requires those who register voters to be deputized and undergo training.
"We've seen state after state make it harder for people to sign up to vote, to register and to
volunteer," Jealous said. "This is by design."
45 | P a g e
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, said, "I absolutely deny the claim that
these laws are intended in any way to discourage people from voting. The objective of these laws
is to make it easy to vote but hard to cheat."
The Kansas House voted Tuesday in favor of a law requiring proof of citizenship. The state
Senate must still vote on it.
Some people might think they're registered when they're not, said Barbara Arnwine, executive
director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
For example, people who have moved after losing a home or job may not know they must reregister, she said.
The NAACP is contacting people in the membership databases of the Church of God in Christ
and the National Baptist Convention. It is mailing pre-filled-out registration cards to young
people who will be 18 by the general election.
46 | P a g e
National NAACP leader to join Md. death penalty opponents
By John Wagner
The Washington Post
January 9, 2012
Benjamin Jealous, president of the national NAACP, is scheduled to appear in Annapolis
Tuesday morning to support a renewed push to abolish Maryland’s death penalty.
With the General Assembly set to reconvene Wednesday for its annual 90-day session, Jealous
and other civil rights leaders have called a news conference to highlight racial disparities and
“systemic flaws” with capital punishment, according to an advisory issued by two groups
sponsoring the event.
Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) is also expected to join death
penalty opponents.
The death penalty has been a source of great debate in Annapolis in recent years, even though
Maryland has had a de facto moratorium on executions since late 2006.
In 2009, lawmakers balked at a bill sponsored by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) that sought to
abolish the death penalty. Instead, the legislature passed a compromise measure that tightened
evidentiary standards in capital cases.
It's unclear whether there will be enough votes in a key Senate committee this year to shelve the
2009 compromise in favor of a full repeal. But that has hardly deterred the efforts of anti-death
penalty activists, who are also planning to lobby lawmakers en masse on Jan. 16, Martin Luther
King Day.
At the urging of anti-death penalty lawmakers, O’Malley has also considered in recent weeks
using the state budget to restrict funding for capital punishment.
Maryland has had a de facto moratorium on executions since shortly before O’Malley took office
in 2007, and it is unclear how much longer it might continue.
In late 2006, Maryland’s highest court ruled that the state’s procedures for lethal injections had
not been properly adopted and halted scheduled executions. Efforts since then by the O’Malley
administration to craft new rules have been delayed several times.
The most recent setback came after the manufacturer of one the three drugs used in Maryland’s
lethal injection procedures announced it was halting production of the drug.
A spokesman for the state corrections department said recently that officials there are continuing
to work on an alternative. Any new regulations will be subject to a review by a legislative panel,
which is co-chaired by two lawmakers opposed to capital punishment.
47 | P a g e
NAACP Image Awards tributes Whitney Houston, hands prizes to
'The Help' and George Lucas
By Ray Rahman
Entertainment Weekly
February 18, 2012
The mood was a somber one at the 43rd Annual NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles last
night. Much of the ceremony was colored by Whitney Houston’s memory, which was honored in
the form of numerous tributes.
Yolanda Adams delivered a stirring rendition of “I Love the Lord, He Made Me Cry,” which she
ended with “We love you, Nip.” (“Nip” is Houston’s nickname.)
Also highlighted during the evening was footage from the 1994 Image Awards, which depicted
the late singer accepting an Image Award for outstanding female artist. In the clip, Denzel
Washington is tasked with presenting the prize, and calls Houston an “artist of unparalleled
stature.”
The night also handed out a bevy of awards for Oscar Best Picture contender The Help. Viola
Davis collected the Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture award, while Octavia Spencer won
Outstanding Supporting Actress. The movie itself, which Davis called “the joy of my life,” won
for Outstanding Motion Picture. “I found my voice,” Davis said of the film. “I just emerged
through The Help.”
Samuel L. Jackson presented a Vanguard Award to “the man, the myth, the legend” George
Lucas, who released the Tuskegee Airmen epic Red Tails under his Lucasfilm banner.
Of course, Lucas also made a few popular science-fiction films, which Jackson addressed in his
presentation by recounting how he told Lucas he would do anything to be in a Star Wars
installment. “I’ll be a Storm Trooper and just run across the screen. Nobody even has to know
I’m in it.”
Jennifer Hudson and Ne-Yo also got in on the Lucas action, performing “Ain’t No Mountain
High Enough” for the filmmaker.
Other winners included Southland‘s Regina King for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series,
Reed Between the Lines‘ Tracee Ellis Ross for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, and
Reed‘s Malcolm-Jamal Warner for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. For a full list of
winners, click here.
But the night belonged to Whitney. The ceremony ended with gospel singer Kirk Franklin, who
sang the Houston classic “The Greatest Love of All.”
48 | P a g e
Leading the Way: NAACP Summit Prepares Game Changers for
Battle
By Phyllis Armstrong
B. Couleur
May 26
For many Americans, the euphoria of an Inauguration
Day that changed the course of U.S. presidential history
withered under the glare of economic realities. The
hope for greater change gave way to struggles for
survival as foreclosures, bankruptcies and
unemployment rocked the nation.
In "Foreclosed: The State of the Dream 2008",
mortgage lenders are blamed for costing people of color
more than $200 billion dollars by selling them on
subprime loans. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is holding them accountable.
"We have called them to task and they are now going back to these same communities that have
been so disproportionately impacted, and working to help them get on stronger financial
footing," said Roslyn Brock, chairman of the NAACP's National Board of Directors.
Economic empowerment is one of the game changer topics tackled at the 8th Annual Leadership
500 Summit in Destin, Florida, May 24-27. The executive director of the NAACP's new
Financial Freedom Center co-authored the 2008 report and is one of the experts educating
attendees on strategies for creating, sustaining and sharing wealth.
"Dedrick Mohammed, one of the leaders of our economic development department, just gave a
presentation around the difference between wealth and income," said Brock. "In the last four
years, African Americans lost 53 percent of their economic wealth.
In July, the Pew Research Center reported that the housing market collapse and recession hit
minorities much harder. The 53% drop in median wealth for black households compared to only
a 16 percent decline for whites. Hispanic households lost 66% of their median wealth.
49 | P a g e
The NAACP is sponsoring strategy sessions at the summit to prepare more leaders to join the
battle for economic equity and equality rights on every front.
"The individuals we have identified as leaders for the 8th Annual Leadership 500 Summit are
game changers. They are the ones who have the courage to step into the public square and lead
change in a particular area," Brock said.
The way the Chairman Brock sees it, the summit is about much more than attendees listening to
experts on target issues.
"Not only are we giving them information, we are giving them a charge. We are giving them
something to do," explained Brock. "We want them to be proactive not reactive in responding to
the civil rights challenges of the day."
That means after leaving strategy sessions on economic empowerment, health, education,
criminal justice, civic participation and environmental justice, the Summit participates have a
mission: go back to their communities and become game changers.
"If there is a will, the NAACP can find a way to get you connected, involved and ready to make
a difference," added Brock.
The nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization has more than half a million members
across the U.S. and abroad. Brock is confident about the NAACP's ability to support people who
are ready to lead the charge for change in their communities. In her view, listening to what
matters to the Summit attendees is equally important.
"We want to really touch the pulse of the 21st century leaders in our nation. We are giving voice
and vision to what they say in our strategy sessions."
That requires the organization to step up on issues confronting new generations of Americans
while continuing the fight for civil rights on traditional fronts. The NAACP's recent endorsement
of marriage equality is an example. Brock acknowledged the organization's stand on gay
marriage as possibly controversial. It is also reflects the organization's belief in America's
founding principle of equal protection under the law.
"We are not afraid to stand in that space and call our nation and ourselves to task, to be true to
those basic tenets of our society because we believe courage cannot skip this generation," said
Brock.
Nor can this or future generations abandon the fight for equity and justice for all Americans -- no
matter how long the fight. NAACP President Ben Jealous made that point in the opening session
of the Leadership 500 Summit.
50 | P a g e
"He said to the attendees that people ask the question, 'How long will you be working on these
issues? How long will you be working on health care? How long will you be working on
education or criminal justice?' And his response was, 'As long as it takes,'" Brock recounted.
Issues surrounding the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida and the challenges confronting African
American men today are on the agenda for the Summit's town hall meeting. When the conference
ends, Brock expects the legacy of the NAACP to be strengthened by a cadre of reenergized
leaders going home to do battle in an election year.
"I think that we will continue to do what we have always done, which is to mobilize, to agitate,
to educate and to create an informed populace, so that every American feels that they have a
right and a privilege to go to the voting box and to be a good civic participant," said Brock.
Check out the Leadership 500 Summit website for more information about the strategy sessions,
town hall meeting and 2012 honorees.
51 | P a g e
NAACP Gives Congress Failing Grade
Congressional Black Caucus members are at the head of the class
By Joyce Jones
BET.com
April 18
Add the NAACP to the growing number of
organizations and individuals that believe
congressional lawmakers are doing a lousy
job. The organization’s Civil Rights
Legislative Report Card released April 18
gave failing grades to 46 percent of U.S.
senators and 55 percent of House members
based on how they voted on “bread and
butter” civil rights issues from January 5 to
December 23, 2011.
“The fact that the federal government touches almost every aspect of our lives, from health and
education to criminal justice and economic stability, means that they have the power to make
improvements in the lives of almost every American if they simply exercise their political will to
work hard and address the real issues and concerns of the American people,” said Hilary Shelton,
NAACP Washington bureau chief.
The report card rates 15 votes taken in the Senate and 20 in the House on legislation that would
repeal funding for implementation of the Affordable Care Act and ban funding for health care
services provided by Planned Parenthood, the House’s 2012 federal budget, an amendment to
stop payments for the Black farmers settlement and the confirmation vote on Richard Cordray’s
nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Not surprisingly, almost every member of the Congressional Black Caucus earned an A grade.
The exceptions were Reps. Sanford Bishop (Georgia) and Gregory Meeks (New York), who
each received a B, and Florida’s Allen West, who earned an F.
The NAACP has issued a legislative report card since 1914 to educate its members on their
congressional representatives’ voting patterns.
“Although much has changed in the past 50 years, there is still much to be done. Racial
discrimination, segregation, bias and disparities continue to plague our nation,” said NAACP
President Ben Jealous. “We need to understand how and if our federal officials are dealing with
these problems.”
52 | P a g e
Addressing Childhood Obesity: From Public Health To Social
Justice
By Jessica Marcy
Kaiser Health News
September 27, 2011
Moving her hips and shaking her hands, U.S.
Surgeon General Regina Benjamin danced the
Cupid shuffle alongside elementary school kids
to kick off the NAACP’s initiative on childhood
obesity inside the Thurgood Marshall Center,
where the famous civil rights lawyer stayed in
Washington, D.C. while fighting for
desegregation. It seemed like an appropriate
backdrop to welcome NAACP’s effort to
refocus discussion of childhood obesity as not
strictly a public health crisis, but also a civil
rights and social justice issue.
Surgeon General Regina Benjamin shows off
her "Cupid shuffle" for Washington children on
Tuesday.
“That was fun,” Benjamin said as she took her
seat. “Exercise is medicine.”
Childhood obesity, which has nearly tripled over the past three decades, impacts children from
across racial groups. Yet, more than a third of black children who are obese or significantly
overweight often come from communities with socio-economic conditions that hinder their
ability to tackle the problem.
The NAACP held the event to release its Childhood Obesity Advocacy Manual, which they
developed with CommonHealth Action, to provide tools to help local members advocate for
policy changes at the local, state and federal level.
The NAACP, which also has a major initiative on HIV, hopes to use its influence as the nation’s
oldest and largest civil rights organization with nearly 1,200 active local affiliates and 10,000
health educators to implement the childhood obesity plan over a two-year period. “That’s where
53 | P a g e
the power of the NAACP comes in,” said Benjamin Jealous, the group’s president and CEO.
“We have a volunteer network that no other organization in the black community has.”
In the U.S., 31.8 percent of youths between the ages of 2 and 19 – about 23 million children – are
obese or significantly overweight. That includes 38 percent of Latino children, 34.9 percent of
African-American children and 30.7 percent of white children. But, black children are often
more likely to face obstacles to healthy lifestyles because many live in communities that,
because of blight or crime, have fewer opportunities for physical activity and more limited
access to healthy food options. They are also less likely to have preventive care, more likely to
suffer from diabetes and more likely to visit the emergency room than white children.
Other key details from the manual include:




By 2008-2009, 29.2 percent of black teenage girls age 12-19 were obese, representing the
highest prevalence of any age group by gender, race or ethnicity.
Black females born in 2000 have a 49 percent lifetime risk of being diagnosed with
diabetes, which is often associated with obesity, while white females have a 31 percent
risk.
Black males born in 2000 have a 40 percent lifetime risk while white males have a 28
percent risk of being diagnosed with diabetes during their lifetime.
Black women and men are less likely to accurately view themselves and their children as
overweight.
“In order to take action, you need to recognize risk,” said Natalie Burke, president of
CommonHealth Action.
The report calls for public policy changes in three main community areas: infrastructure such as
roads, schools and park spaces; the food environment, which includes the prevalence of fresh
foods in supermarkets and farmers markets; and school-based policies, which affect guidelines
for school meals and physical activity. “We have to move it from a conversation about personal
responsibility to an urgent conversation we need to have about public responsibility,” Jealous
said.
54 | P a g e
NAACP Commends Coal Plant Closing
Jenee Desmond-Harris
The Root
February 29
Last year the NAACP ranked Chicago's Fisk Generating Station and Crawford Generating
Station as two of the nation's worst environmental-justice offenders. So today the organization is
praising an agreement that will lead to the closure of the coal plants years earlier than expected.
President and CEO Ben Jealous saysthey were "literally choking some of Chicago's most diverse
neighborhoods, and some of its poorest."
Proximity to coal emissions can lead to respiratory diseases, including even premature death, and
the NAACP takes issue with the fact that the coal-fired plants are disproportionately located in
low-income communities and communities of color.
"Though it was a long time coming, it is heartening to see Midwest Generation take the socially
responsible path," Jacqueline Patterson, director of NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice
Programs, said in a statement today.
"The 600,000 Chicago residents living within three miles of Fisk or Crawford have suffered long
enough," added Rose Joshua, president of the NAACP South Side Chicago unit. "This is a true
victory for grassroots democracy -- a group of citizens who refused to be marginalized and spoke
up for the health and well-being of their families and their environment."
55 | P a g e
OPINION HIGHLIGHTS
56 | P a g e
A Legacy to Honor; A Dream to Achieve
By Roslyn M. Brock
Syndicate in: Milwaukee Courier, South Florida Times, Atlanta Daily World and California Crusader
October 18, 2011
On Sunday, our nation dedicated the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial on
the National Mall. This momentous occasion was filled with moving tributes and great
performances. However, in the wake of this dedication, we cannot help but reflect on
the true legacy Dr. King left behind, the faith he had in the next generation, and the
dream that we must still strive to achieve.
Without question, few shaped our culture and our nation in the 20th century more than
Dr. King. His legacy of social justice and activism has played an integral role in so
much of what we take for granted today. Without his advocacy for voting rights,
people of color might still be unable to cast a ballot unfettered. If not for his work defending the poor,
economic disparity in America would be far more than dire than it is today. And without Dr. King’s call
for non-violence, the civil rights movement might be remembered for the bloodshed and not for its
message of justice and equality.
At the NAACP, Dr. King’s legacy is prominent in our constant struggle to advance civil and human
rights. With our Financial Freedom Campaign, we are building on Dr. King’s message that true freedom
is inextricably tied to economic justice. With that in mind, we are providing underserved communities
across the country with the tools they need to attain and maintain financial stability. In our health
campaigns, we have embodied Dr. King’s remark that, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health
care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Working under that motto, we are organizing campaigns to
bring additional attention and resources to the fight against HIV/AIDS and childhood obesity. When we
fight for equality in education, we remember Dr. King’s belief that education functions “to teach one to
think intensively and to think critically”, something that all students deserve.
With all that Dr. King gave to the world, his most enduring gift may be the faith he had in others. Dr.
King had an unwavering faith that future generations would continue his fight to ensure that the arc of the
universe bends towards justice. He trusted that if he provided the vehicle and destination, we would be
able to forge our own path towards equality.
We must remember Dr. King’s faith as we fight twenty-first century attempts to roll back rights for
people of color. Dr. King succeeded in securing full voting rights for people of all color, but this election
season we see a coordinated right-wing push to implement laws that would disenfranchise poor and
minority voters. He strove for equality between all races, but our nation is stuck in a “tough on crime”
mentality that imprisons African Americans for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of their white
counterparts. Dr. King brought his attention to poverty, but these days the gap between rich and poor is
57 | P a g e
wider than ever before, and the war on poverty has been narrowed to a series of bromides and unrealized
initiatives.
I grew up in this organization as a member of the NAACP Youth and College Division. Inspired by the
work of Dr. King and those who followed him, I joined the Association as a freshman at Virginia Union
University and later served as a Youth Board Member. I am proud to say that in its 75th year, our Youth
and College Division is 25,000 members strong, making it one of the largest organized groups of young
people of any secular organization in the country. These youth are the future of the organization, and we
must have faith in them as Dr. King had faith in us. After all, there is still so much to do before we
achieve Dr. King’s dream of full equality.
The future is calling, and with your help, the NAACP will answer.
Roslyn M. Brock is the Chairman of the National Board of Directors for the NAACP.
58 | P a g e
Column: Time to redouble AIDS fight in black community
By Roslyn Brock and Benjamin Todd Jealous
USA Today
December 1, 2011
On this World AIDS Day, as the world
focuses its attention on the epidemic
around the globe, we cannot forget there
is an HIV crisis raging right here in our
own backyards.
Blacks are more likely to become
infected, less likely to get treatment, less
likely to know they have the disease and
more likely to die from HIV and AIDS
than any other race.
Yet a dangerous mix of complacency,
cultural stigma and outright denial continues to fuel this epidemic in our communities.
The late Dorothy Height— a civil rights pioneer and longtime chair of the National Council of
Negro Women— once likened the fight against AIDS to the most important civil rights crusades
of our time. She said, we must "talk about HIV, as we talk about jobs, as we talk about housing,
as we talk about civil rights." She was right.
Her words carry new urgency in light of a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) that tells us while African Americans make up just 14% of the U.S.
population, they account for almost half (44%) of all new HIV infections in the nation every
year. Black women also continue to be hard hit, making up nearly 60% of all infections among
women each year.
But most troubling is news from the same report, which shows that while new HIV infections
have stayed stable across the board from 2006 to 2008, one group — young black gay and
bisexual men — have experienced an astronomical increase of 48% in just three years in HIV
infections.
59 | P a g e
Staggering statistics
These statistics are mind-boggling and heart-breaking. Even more, they remind us that we will
never overcome the scourge of HIV until and unless we confront the demons in our own
communities that have allowed it to flourish: stigma and homophobia. Together, they prevent far
too many in our community from seeking testing, prevention and treatment.
In light of the recent and troubling data showing stark increases in HIV infections among our
young gay and bisexual men, we must first purge our own hearts of this prejudice and then rally
together as a community to rid homophobia from our culture.
Like members of any family, we will sometimes disagree; we may not see eye to eye and the
conversation may be uncomfortable. But we cannot ignore this challenge. What happens to one
member of our family happens to us all. And if we are to stand for civil rights, we must stand for
civil rights for all.
That means we in the black community must work to create safe spaces in our homes, schools
and places of worship to talk openly about HIV. The time to start is now.
Coordinated effort
Over the past year, the NAACP along with some of the nation's foremost African-American
organizations has joined forces with the Obama administration and the CDC to fight HIV in
every corner of our communities. Together, we have committed to extend our collective reach
and strength to integrate HIV prevention into everything we do: at our national conventions,
through our media outlets and in our local chapters across the nation.
If you are reading this, the responsibility also starts with you: Take an HIV test. Know your
status. Protect yourself and speak out against homophobia and the stigma attached to HIV
whenever possible. We can no longer be silent as too many of our sisters and brothers grow ill
and perish from this disease.
Together and individually, we must confront this threat with the same tireless energy we have
exhibited in our fight for better jobs, better housing and in the ongoing struggle to ensure civil
rights for all.
Roslyn M. Brock is chairman of the NAACP's Board of Directors. Benjamin Todd Jealous is
president and CEO of the NAACP.
60 | P a g e
The World Will Remember Troy's Name
By Benjamin Todd Jealous
The Huffington Post
September 22, 2011
Last night the State of Georgia killed an innocent man.
In recent weeks, we fought hard for the commutation of Troy Davis' sentence. More than one
million petitions were delivered. Protests, rallies and vigils were organized around the globe.
Last night, we fasted and prayed together as a community.
I have spent the past week with Troy's family. He wanted the world to know that he understood
that this struggle goes beyond just one man. Troy was prepared to die last night. As he said again
and again, the state of Georgia only held the power to take his physical body. They could not
take his spirit, because he gave his life to God.
Let's remember and heed Troy's words: We must not let them kill our spirit, either.
Troy's execution, the exceptional unfairness of it, will only hasten the end of the death penalty in
the United States. The world will remember the name of Troy Anthony Davis. In death he will
live on as a symbol of a broken justice system that kills an innocent man while a murderer walks
free.
The world will remember Troy's name, as the death penalty supporters who expressed doubt in
this case begin to doubt an entire system that can execute a man amidst so many unanswered
questions.
The world will remember Troy's name, as death penalty opponents who remained silent in the
past realize that their silence is no longer an option.
The world will remember Troy's name because we will commemorate September 21st each year
as both a solemn anniversary and a call to action. The night they put Troy Davis to death will
become an annual reminder that justice will not be achieved until we end this brutal practice of
capital punishment.
"This movement," Troy said, "started before I was born." After last night, our movement will
grow stronger until we succeed in destroying the death penalty in the United States once and for
all.
I know you will join me. Together we will secure his legacy, and the world will remember the
name Troy Anthony Davis.
61 | P a g e
NAACP to challenge voter ID laws nationwide
By Benjamin Todd Jealous
The Grio
November 10, 2011
Our nation is in the midst of a 100year flood of extremist attacks on
voting rights. The goal: to block
access to the polls for people of
color, the elderly, and students —
the groups most likely to support
civil and human rights,
immigration reform, and
environmental and labor
protections.
On this past election day, voters in
Maine were able to close the
floodgates in time and restore
same-day voter registration.
However, the simultaneous passage of voter photo ID restrictions Mississippi reminds us how
strong these waves can be and why we must continue to fight so that many of our rights will not
be swept away.
For all these reasons — because the situation is urgent, because the tide can be turned, and
because our voting rights are our last line of defense against an assault on many other rights —
the NAACP, 1199SEIU, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), National Action Network,
the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), National Urban League, and a broad coalition of civil
rights and labor groups are organizing a Stand for Freedom — a national day of action in defense
of the right to vote on Saturday, December 10th — International Human Rights Day.
The event will include a march from the NYC headquarters of leading voter suppression funders,
The Koch brothers, to the United Nations.
Though this modern flood of attacks on voting rights has been developing for years, the
multifaceted assault began less than 12 months ago when coalitions of extremist state politicians
across the country started passing legislation to suppress voter turnout of groups that cast ballots
in favor of social justice and civil rights.
In 2011 alone, 34 states have introduced voter suppression legislation, with laws passing in 14 of
those states, and laws pending in 8.
62 | P a g e
In states like Wisconsin, Mississippi, Kansas and Alabama, politicians are erecting barriers to the
polls in the form of rigid photo ID requirements.
Notwithstanding years of non-partisan studies indicating that an individual is more likely to be
struck and killed by lightning than to impersonate another person at the polls, legislators in these
states continue to espouse this myth.
These same studies also prove that people of color, members of the working class, seniors,
women, and seniors will have a harder time casting their ballot thanks to these 21st century poll
taxes.
The reason is that many in these communities are less likely to have IDs that conform to the
strict new rules. And while states have been forced by the Supreme Court to offer state photo IDs
for free, many in these aforementioned groups do not have access to — or cannot afford — the
underlying documents, such as birth certificates, necessary to secure proper state
identification.Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin are attacking voting rights from the flank by
eliminating early voting opportunities. Reports from recent elections indicate that African
Americans, in particular, are more likely to utilize early voting in order to avoid long lines at
urban polling precincts on Election Day. These cuts to early voting also dampen turnout for
many blue-collar working citizens, students, seniors, parents who don’t have the luxury or
flexibility to stand in poll lines for as many as eight hours.
From stripping the rights of rehabilitated criminal offenders (Florida and Iowa) to eliminating
same-day voter registration (Maine and North Carolina) to targeted purges of African Americans
and Latinos from voter rolls (Florida and Mississippi), this wave of attacks has been consistent
and relentless thanks in no small part to guidance and funding from Charles and David Koch and
their corporate allies.
Through their funding and support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Koch
brothers have convinced legislators in several states to propose and pass the voter ID bills that
they drafted. The Koch brothers have also directly contributed an additional quarter million
dollars to candidates who support the suppression legislation.
The Koch brothers’ tactics are not unique. Historically, far-right wing extremists have attacked
the right to vote in order to make it easier to attack other rights. More than a century ago, they
did it to make it easier to help establish segregation. Now they are doing it to make it easier to
attack women’s rights, environmental protections, immigrant’s rights, equal opportunity
programs, LBGT rights, and workers’ right to organize.
Unfortunately for these suppression groups, we defeated these tactics before and are prepared to
do it again. In coordination with fellow civil rights activists we have already stopped suppression
legislation in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota.
And in Ohio, the historic victory defending workers’ right to organize likely would not have
been possible if a coalition of labor and civil rights groups — that included the NAACP and
NAACP National Voter Fund – had not first blocked the state’s misguided voter ID bill. Had that
63 | P a g e
bill been implemented we would have seen massive numbers of voters — disproportionately
students and people of color — disqualified for lack of a sufficient photo identification.
With all of our victories, there have still been setbacks in our fight. In Mississippi, we saw black
voters and white women form a powerful coalition to stop a bill that would have outlawed
abortion — even in cases of rape and incest —- as well as many of the most common forms of
birth control. And then we saw those same voters greatly increase the likelihood that a similar
bill will eventually pass as votes broke along racial lines with whites voting for the state’s voter
ID initiative and blacks opposing it.
It has been said that, while we all came to America in different boats, we are all in the same boat
now. The victories in Ohio demonstrate that voting rights are literally what holds our boat
together and remind us that not only will we survive the rising tide, but we can actually turn it
back. And the voting rights loss in Mississippi reminds us that when we forget that, our ship is
destined to sink.
Let’s take a stand for freedom. We can turn the tide, defend our right to vote, and in the process
ensure our ability to defend our other rights too. When we come together as one, even the
greatest flood cannot drown our voice nor wash away our rights.
64 | P a g e
NAACP Takes Up the Clean-Energy Fight
By Jacqui Patterson
The Root
May 14
Amid the sea of statistics I scan
each day, one jumped out
recently: According to a study,
African-American children are
four to six times more likely
than white children to die from
asthma(pdf). That chronic
disease, along with other
illnesses, is linked to toxins
pumped out by coal-fired power
plants, and approximately 68
percent of African American
families live within 30 miles of
a coal-fired plant.
Given the disproportionate impact that these illnesses have on black families, addressing these
challenges is a civil rights imperative.
The NAACP has decided to shape the emerging clean economy by engaging in it. Starting this
year, a full 100 percent of the energy that the NAACP’s Baltimore headquarters consumes will
come from Green-E Certified Wind Power. We joined a purchasing group consisting of more
than 100 other local community nonprofits and faith institutions facilitated through a nonprofit
called Groundswell and the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation.
By strengthening our economic power in the electricity market, we locked in lower rates on clean
energy. Our headquarters will switch to clean energy while saving $7,000 on its annual energy
bill -- an 18 percent reduction. Furthermore, our members will be able to enjoy the same savings.
Creative approaches like this one are crucial to accelerating the nation's shift away from energy
sources that contaminate the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. We are on
our way to debunking a powerful myth that clean energy comes with higher energy costs.It’s an
idea that prevents many families from insisting on clean power.
Besides the dollar-and-cents cost savings on monthly utilities, families should also factor in the
larger societal benefits of clean energy. How can we calculate the value of reducing the number
65 | P a g e
of children who struggle with asthma or the health hazards inflicted on rural communities, from
disasters like the Tennessee Valley Authority coal-ash spill or the BP oil spill? We can harness
vast, renewable energy without risking our health and our livelihoods.
Curbing power plant emissions and advancing use of clean energy and energy efficiency are
clear public health priorities. By bringing our rich history of moral leadership to bear on clean
energy, the NAACP seeks to broaden support for small grassroots efforts that can bring about
enormous social change.
As we live our values, we invite other nonprofits, community organizations and congregations to
join local efforts around clean energy. Together we can bring about the sea change required to
transform not only how we power our lives but also how we protect the health of American
families.
Jacqui Patterson is director of the NAACP's Environmental and Climate Justice program.
66 | P a g e
City is Wrong to Block NAACP Billboard
By Robert Rooks
Philadelphia Inquirer
October 25, 2011
The United States accounts for less than 5 percent of the world's population but about 25 percent
of its prisoners. This is a fact. Unfortunately, though, the city and its advertising agent, Clear
Channel Outdoor Holdings, have suppressed the NAACP's constitutional right to share this
information via a billboard at Philadelphia International Airport.
Of all the rights granted by the Constitution, the right to free speech has the greatest impact on
the nation's ability to function and grow. This is especially true of speech about our government,
including our outdated, inefficient prison system.
The NAACP's proposed billboard would feature an image of the Statue of Liberty and the text:
"Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world's people & 25% of the world's prisoners." It
adds, "Let's build a better America together." Philadelphia and Clear Channel rejected it despite
having allowed other issue-oriented and educational advertisements in the past.
One can only wonder how Philadelphia and Clear Channel would have responded if we had
chosen to advertise the fact that the nation's prison population tripled between 1987 and 2007,
growing by more than a million people. What if our billboard were to note that Pennsylvania
spends about $33,000 per prisoner every year, but only $4,000 per college student? Or that 65
percent of Philadelphia's lowest-performing schools are in impoverished and predominantly
minority neighborhoods?
Statistics like these, which shed light on the flaws in our system, should be shared with residents
of Philadelphia and the rest of the nation. Such knowledge is the first step toward fixing the
system. Earlier this year, an NAACP report on prison and school funding, titled "Misplaced
Priorities: Under Educate, Over Incarcerate," earned praise from politicians and interest groups
across the political spectrum - including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the American
Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, and U.S. Student
Association president Lindsay McCluskey.
America has an imperfect criminal justice system, but it can be fixed through reforms such as
fair sentencing policies; drug laws that recognize the difference between drug abusers and
predators; more parole for nonviolent offenders; and, crucially, more investment in education
and treatment programs both inside and outside of prisons, including programs that provide
alternatives to incarceration. Many states have already implemented some of these measures, and
the movement for "smart on crime" policies is growing.
67 | P a g e
This is not the time to shield America from the kind of important information that would appear
on the NAACP billboard. To protect our constitutional right to present it, we, in conjunction with
the ACLU, have filed a lawsuit in federal court requesting that the airport be compelled to accept
and display our advertisement, much as it has in the case of animal-rights and environmental
messages.
Frederick Douglass said, "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the
hearer as well as those of the speaker." We must not let Clear Channel and the city double the
wrongs of our criminal justice system.
68 | P a g e
NAACP Communications Team
Eric Wingerter
Vice President for Communications
and New Media
[email protected]
202.463.2940 ext. 3382
Derek Turner
Director of Communications
[email protected]
202.463.2940 ext. 3383
Cell: 443.326.7227
Joi Ridley
Communications Associate
[email protected]
202.463.2940 ext. 3384
Cell: 410.409.1219
Ben Wrobel
Communications Associate:
[email protected]
202.463.2940 ext. 3386
Cell: 917.846.0658
For the latest press releases visit: http://www.naacp.org/press
For more information on the NAACP Convention visit:
http://www.naacp.org/pages/convention/
69 | P a g e