NAACP president: Renew efforts against injustice
For all its greatness, America carries its share of human rights violations: among them, the mistreatment of Native Americans, Japanese Americans and African Americans.
In a rousing speech at the 81st annual convention of the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference on Saturday, Dr. Cornell William Brooks, national leader of the NAACP, recounted those wrongdoings and exhorted members of the country’s oldest civil rights organization to renew their fight against modern injustices.
He also assured the crowd of more than 110 NAACP members and community leaders who gathered at the Double Tree Hotel in North Strabane Township that despite criticism, the organization remains relevant and powerful, and Brooks urged them to carry on the fight against obstacles to equality that was waged by Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights pioneers.
“We’ve got young people asking, ‘Will you be the NAACP of our grandparents, of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks? Will you be the conviction-driven NAACP that we deserve?’ We answer in the affirmative, yes we will,” said Brooks, a fourth-generation ordained minister who holds a master of divinity from Boston University School of Theology and a law degree from Yale Law School.
He was named president and CEO of the NAACP in May 2014.
Brooks referred to threats that African Americans face a half-century after the height of the civil rights movement, and his words and intensity stirred the audience. He gestured often with his hands and gripped the podium, and his voice rose louder throughout the nearly hourlong keynote speech.
In what Brooks called “a heart-wrenching year,” he noted the deaths of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of police, the murders of nine black church members at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., his home state, and calls for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state Capitol.
He also talked about a multitude of problems facing minorities in this country, including voting rights, racial profiling and mass incarceration.
Brooks described how those issues led to the NAACP’s decision to embark on “America’s Journey for Justice,” an 867-mile march from Selma, Ala., to Washington, D.C., that began Aug. 1 and coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law in 1965.
The six-week march, he said, turned into a 1,002-mile trek when officials in Spartanville, S.C., told marchers they couldn’t walk through the town because of security threats.
“We never heard a word of complaint,” Brooks said. “This NAACP started out in Selma marching in 104-degree heat, with a heat index of 114 degrees, we had 7-year-olds, 70-year-olds, 90-year-olds and 94-year-olds marching. Your NAACP had thousands and thousands of people sleeping in cots and sleeping bags in churches along the way. Why? Because we have courage, because we have guts.”
Over and over, Brooks called for the NAACP to be persistent in its battle against the unequal treatment of blacks by the criminal justice system – a young black man is 21 times more likely to lose his life at the hands of police than their counterparts, he said – and pointed out that the United States has the largest prison system of any industrialized nation.
He touched on voter fraud legislation that critics argue make it harder for African Americans to vote.
“We’ve got to be clear as members of the NAACP that this fight is our fight. Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act using dozens and dozens of ceremonial and presidential pens.
“We understand that while President Johnson might have signed the act into law with the ink of a presidential pen, it was enacted with the blood, sweat and tears of the members of the NAACP.”
Brooks called for a multi-generational movement to bring about an end to racism.
The state conference was hosted by the Mon Valley branch of the NAACP.
Also, the NAACP honored Dr. Burrell Brown, a California University of Pennsylvania professor who died in his university office Jan. 25.
Interim President Geraldine M. Jones presented Brown’s widow, Anita, with a posthumous award for his longtime service to the NAACP and his work at the university.
“His legacy at California University will be forever in the minds of his students. He was known for his commitment and dedication to his teaching and hundreds, perhaps thousands of students, will remember him with fondness and gratitude,” Jones said.
“His common sense, unique insights and his laugh inspired all of us at one time or another, and we’re much richer for having known and shared time with Burrell.”