This weekend I had the honor of traveling to Cleveland, Ohio to present a training session to about 40 students on the basics of grassroots organizing and the history of the NAACP. These students, ranging in age from 5 to 25, were totally engaged and open to learning about how they could carry on the tradition of fighting for civil rights in our almost 100 year old Association. These students, with their energetic appetite for knowledge brought tears to my eyes at least twice during the day; as they proudly described the many activities they were involved in on their journey to help the plight of Black people in America. But because there were no cameras in the room or bloggers to give a play by play description of the day, many people are led to believe that this type of engagement of young people simply doesn’t occur in the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. (more…)

I am sick to my stomach and I really do not know what to say right this second. My cell and office phones have been blowing up all day, and people have been emailing me nonstop, to let me know that Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, the three New York City police officers accused of shooting 50 times and murdering Sean Bell, were found not guilty on all counts: Oliver, who fired 31 times and reloaded once, and Isnora, who fired 11 times, had been charged with manslaughter, felony assault and reckless endangerment. They faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Cooper, who fired four times, faced up to a year in jail if convicted of reckless endangerment. And that’s it: Sean Bell, a mere 23 years of age, out partying the morning before the wedding to the mother of his two small children, dead, gone, forever. Sean Bell and his two friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, all unarmed, ambushed by New York’s finest. His last day, November 25, 2006, is marked as another tragic one in New York City history. How many more? I once heard in a protest song. How many more?

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The Nas Legionnaires–a herd of misguided, pea-brain sycophants melodically influenced when Nas strums his flute of musical ignorance–are absolutely ecstatic about the new rapper’s single, “Be A Nigger Too.”

“Be A N**ger Too” is co-produced by Salaam Remi and Big Jack. The song explores the media’s impact on peoples’ perception of the n-word; pardons Eminem for using the idiom in his rhymes; and sustains and invites listeners to “be a n**ga too”–despite the historic plight of black people and the satirizing nature the term reflects upon the African-American community. The song prefaces Nas’ CD–with an expected July 1, 2008, release date, Nigger. (more…)

The NAACP is fiercely non-partisan. We do not endorse candidates. But for over 99 years, the NAACP has also been fiercely anti-racist. In 1898 White Supremacists who controlled the North Carolina Democratic Party at that time, published racist cartoons, lies, and half truths about Black people to plow the fields for a terrorist attack that killed scores of Black people and exiled Black and White leaders of the fragile political alliance that was forming. The cartoons, the attack ads of the day, stirred up hatred and violence that scared poor White voters out of the alliance, and disenfranchised Black voters for three generations of Jim Crow.

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For years, the critics have questioned the NAACP’s relevance. They mention problems such as declining membership, closing of regional offices and ineffective marketing. The detractors assert that the NAACP is passé because of the passage of major civil rights legislation, the dramatic rise of the black middle class and the increasing number of black elected officials.

Despite making great qualitative and quantitative advances, we have a long way to go to reach true equality. The condition of black people makes the NAACP relevant. A substantial segment of the black community has been left behind and forgotten. As result of institutionalized racism and benign neglect, America’s inner cities continue to be plagued by failing schools, high dropout rates, poverty, high unemployment, drugs, violence, mass incarceration, sentencing disparities and police brutality. For many of African Americans, the American Dream remains just that, a dream.

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