My Perspective: Why Blacks Are Holding other Blacks back from Prosperity?

In today’s times, I have seen some many arguments emerge and the word racism or racist used more times than I can ever remember in my time. It’s been a strange couple of weeks and months particularly year and the year isn’t even over with yet. I’ll say that much has changed and perhaps for the best as well as the worse.

A Black president has been attacked vigorously, and nary a soul can legitimately hint racism is involved. The same can be said of the plights of athletic stars Allen Iverson and Michael Vick, both saddled with enough baggage to provoke extreme levels of skepticism. In fact, the one incident that ended up being racially tinged involved a renowned scholar, honored by former President Clinton, befriended by President Obama and Oprah, and celebrated throughout the African-American community as an iconic figure. An individual deemed above the pettiness and belligerence considered normal whenever Blacks and Police Officers are mentioned in the same sentence.

Yet, Professor Louis Gates proved not to be above such insidious occurrences, after all. In fact, for all we know, he may have been a provocateur. Ditto for the rest of us so eager to jump to his defense, before hearing all of the facts. So what does our eagerness to draw uninformed conclusions about racial matters say about how far we’ve come as a people? About our nation, and where we are heading? In politics? In sports? In life? One must wonder.

Forgive me, but I found myself thinking out loud to a few folks close to me, at least vaguely connecting Obama and Gates with Iverson and Vick. Perhaps because all are black males and mentioned, some would say, with some tint of racial profiling these past weeks and months. Time and again, our cynicism as a society has proved to be so intense, we instantly look beneath the surface to discover the motivation behind actions. But lost in our search, at times, is the intent behind it. Sitting right on the surface, themselves. There must be maliciousness somewhere. Haven’t you heard?

In Obama’s case, where you have registered independents/conservative Democrats, per se, jumping ship, questioning whether the man knows what he’s doing, I’ve continuously encountered Blacks – including many loved ones, I must admit — too eager to swear: “They just don’t want to give that Black man a chance.” Rarely has any of my friends acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, our executive-in-chief should slow down, take a deep breath and recognize we’re all rooting for his success. Just don’t spend us into oblivion. Obama keeps reminding us that he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit, but rarely illuminates the trillion-plus he’s already spent, his $3.6 trillion proposed budget, or the $1-to-$2-trillion his new healthcare reform is projected to cost.

While those same friends have applauded his desire to tax the affluent, few of them have taken a moment to assess the collateral damage higher taxes would have, along with the trickle-down effect destined to squeeze a Black community already saddled with 14.7 percent unemployment nationwide – predictably, the highest in America. (Translation: When it’s time for employers to absorb a pinch, do you really think they’ll pass on pinching You before pinching themselves?)

Those same friends, who shove aside Obama’s imminent, potentially catastrophic, maneuvers for the economy, choosing to focus on his intent and his vision, are the same friends who swore Gates, a Harvard professor, was racially profiled after he was arrested by a Cambridge (Mass.) police officer for disorderly conduct in his own home. They are the same friends who think Vick is experiencing his own version of racial profiling since some are not eager to let him back in the NFL following 23 months in federal prison. And they are the same ones who’ve said Iverson hasn’t found a team yet because he’s being unfairly stigmatized.

There’s no doubt that validity is attached to all the suspicions emanating from the Black community. But at some point, it just comes down to doing what’s right. Basically, we have no other choice that benefits us. When will Obama learn that you can’t walk into the presidency gung-ho on redistributing wealth, while unemployment continues to escalate, and expect your approval ratings to elevate? Or even stand pat?

Regardless of what may or may not have happened, why wasn’t Professor Gates composed enough to de-escalate a situation with the police, knowing that if he was just a black man, as opposed to a renowned scholar with influential friends, he could have easily been just another statistic lost in the news clutter? When will we learn that while Vick most certainly has suffered enough and deserves a second chance, that a segment of the Black populace won’t help his cause when coupling race with statements like: “They were just dogs. Damn! We know plenty of people who’ve done much worse and are not in jail. Let alone denied the right to earn a living?”

Or that as much as a lot of us may love and root for Iverson – myself included – his maverick ways no longer ingratiate him to coaches and executives more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing their jobs? A new day may have arrived, but it is foolish to assume new rules are en vogue when most Blacks still lament how two Americas still exists, even with a Black president.

If we’re being real, it’s undeniable that some within the Black community believe Gates suffered from the same selective amnesia our president should have suffered from before accusing someone the president admits was “an outstanding Police Officer” of acting “stupidly” in front of a nationally televised audience. And we’ve stopped counting how often Black athletes suffer from bloated egos, too often forgetting their ethnicity usually usurps their status whenever trouble arrives.

Racism and prejudice have always existed, and when we fight to fend it off, we’re obligated to pick our spots carefully. To make sure it really counts when we elect to do it. The truth is, we’ve fallen short on that mandate on far too many alarming occasions. And some would argue it has actually set us back. Most of America has developed a deaf ear to the issue of racism. It’s not just White America, anymore.

The fact that an incident involving racial profiling is being debated is a defeat in the fight against racism and prejudice. Whether it comes from the mouth of our President, the cantankerous behavior of one of our scholars or the purported exile of our talented athletes, the arguing of these claims weakens the issue of race in America by saturation, alone. That saturation gives Whites and others the argument that everything is about race. It allows other ethnic groups the license to be dismissive. It stymies progress, camouflages reality and builds resentment towards Blacks from all corners of our society.

It hurts to say that. Obviously it is not pleasant, but it is necessary. Especially coming from the mouth of someone within the Black Community. Speaking about and doing what’s right is one thing. But what about doing what actually works? When does that matter?

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is fond of saying, “when the rules are public, visible for all to see, Black folks usually find a way to excel in spite of the obstacles.” The Reverend is absolutely right about that. So long as we’re willing to accept the reality of the world we live in and go from there – and not continue to lament how the world should be without progressively stepping forward first, then looking in the mirror. Or quite simply, just asking ourselves: Where is this going to get us? Moving forward should be easier from there.

However still there are some in the black community who can’t get beyond America’s racial past and would love us as blacks to continue to play the race card in order to get ahead but playing the race card will not solve our social issues or the conditions that we as many black experience. While I agree with Jesse Jackson’s above statements, he has been a part of an old guard of black leadership in the black community that claims to speak for us as blacks but for his rhetoric, Al Sharpton’s rhetoric and many others, what have we as blacks gained since the civil rights movement in terms of prosperity and equity.

Still there are those who believe that race baiting will equate to equality and better living. A Que brother of mine recently wrote me saying:

“You blame Jesse and Al because they speak for you and your ancestors...as well as your children and yet Beck has the right to say whatever he wants. We realize that all Black Folk can not speak afor all Black Folk. Who are you speaking for....looks like youspeakonly for you because I am sure those young brothers in the neighborhood you grew up in the Motor that do not have a highschool education or a job or healthcare would love the race baiting to go on so they could at least get a fair shot at life.”

Now this same brother is in his 50’s and clearly from his statement you can see that he believes that the reason why many young man don’t get a high school education is because of the color of their skin and that race baiting or playing the race card is the only way that we as blacks can prosper. I can understand how others might think like my Que brother but the truth of the matter is that we are in the midst of the 4th generation since the civil rights movement and many of the issues that festered during the civil rights movement still exist today but not just in the black community but in all communities. While it would be easy for us as black to point the finger at other races for our lack of not obtaining an education, a job and a host of other things. I do not believe that we as blacks have truly been honest with ourselves in the blame game because for many of us we still don’t blame ourselves for the conditions that we see today.

If the white man or others are to blame for our conditions as some would want us as blacks to continue to blame than what blame if any do we as blacks have when it comes to our own socio-economic conditions of our fellow blacks. What does it all mean that we are still defeating equality in education 50 plus years after Brown vs. Board? What does it mean when the American Dream is further away for blacks and brown than other racists? Is it the fault of whites for the plight of the black community or is it the fault of the black elite and those who continue to stay in the black community that haven’t stepped up to improve the conditions of poverty, decay and rioting that is plaguing low income black societies in America.

Then there is the idea that when it comes to name calling that we as blacks are the victims. In fact, people like my Que brother are quick to say that “we did not start this name calling...you see we called them master and they called us boy nigga, colored and every other degrading name that you would assign to an animal.” However what many don’t understand is that today, many of us as blacks use these names to describe our own people. We call our woman derogatory and degrading names, we call our fellow black man nigga when we greet them, and are quick to get upset when other races do the same to describe our people but we are okay with us as a people using these names. It is easy for us to get mad at other people for using names that don’t respect us but at the same time, we need to get upset with ourselves and our own people to get them to stop disrespecting us as a people.

The reality is that we as black people can’t grow as long as we continue to play the blame game. In fact we are quick to blame others for our own faults instead of accepting responsibility for our own shortcomings and short falls. We as blacks can’t continue to live in the past and act as if what took place to our people 50 years is the reason why we are suffering today. While some of our shortcomings as a society and as a people are the fault of the past, it is also the fault of us as black people as well. As much blame as we want to rest on the shoulders of whites, we can rest that same amount of blame on ourselves.

My Que brother went on to say, “You see during the late 60's and early 70's we had many folks that spoke for us... not only the Malcoms and Martins but we had the Stokelys and the Hueys and obviously you have never studied what they did for us. They made us prideful about being Black and not a negro or colored. James Brown cut a song tht became the national anthem for young black folk and Martin and Malcom gave their lives for us. As for standing up to our government, all the black folk that spoke for us did not, but there was a common purpose-making sure YOU and I got a fair shot at being equal in America.” Now what my frat brother doesn’t understand is that this is 2009 and where is the pride from our people today. As black people, we saw a resemblance of that pride during the Presidential candidacy of Jesse Jackson in 80s before his own words derailed him and today we saw pride as President Obama ran and won the presidency last year. However all Americans were pride and while we as blacks probably rejoiced the most, we are right now looking back on that triumph and are still reverting back to race baiting rather than accepting responsibility for our own faults in society.

Just as back during the 60s and 70s where all black people did not speak for blacks, today it seems as if most blacks who speak only speak with race baiting in mind and those who avoid to mention race as a the victim of our demise as people are ridiculed. Remember Bill Cosby spoke of parental responsibility and us as blacks taking responsibility for raising our own kids in 2001 in Detroit but he was quickly criticized by the likes of Michael Eric Dyson who wrote a book entitled, “Was Bill Cosby Right?” in order to make a profit off of his disdain for what Cosby said. However Dr. Cosby simply said the same thing that candidate Obama said on Father’s Day 2008 and throughout his run for the Presidency but Dyson never criticized Obama and in fact was one of Obama’s biggest supporters. This is the problem with us as black people, we are quick to dismiss or demonize those in our society we don’t agree with or we don’t like but for those we like we defend no matter how flawless their argument or statements might be.

For far too long, we as black people have been trapped in this age old debate of Booker T. vs. W.E.B. when in reality, both are right just like both Malcolm and Martin was right. We need the black nationalist as well as the black intellectual who has the utopia perspective that blacks and other races can work together to achieve equality and justice for all. However for far too long we have been entrenched in putting blacks vs. blacks or putting down blacks in order to keep blacks black which is thought in the “Mis-Education of the Negro” written by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. This is exactly what Michael Eric Dyson did when he attacked Dr. Bill Cosby for simply saying what many blacks have avoided saying for years.

We as blacks are holding ourselves back from achieving financial, economic and educational prosperity. For far too long and even today, we as blacks are quick to place the blame of us as blacks not achieving on whites and other races but we refuse to place the blame on ourselves. Look around black people and realize that this isn’t slavery although some of us still have shackles on our brains that we allow to stay there and this isn’t the 60’s & 70’s where dogs and water hoses were brought out to attack our children and women. This is 2009 and what is attacking us isn’t the Ku Klux Klan or police but us as blacks killing each other over senseless things. We are killing each other over materialistic things or the pursuit of money. Still we don’t want to speak up and say anything about that.

Many in the black community like to say they care about their people and that what’s important to them is a chance for blacks to finish high school and go to college. However how many of these same people have talked to our youth about putting down the guns, how many of them have talked to the parents about stepping up and being better parents and how many of them have even take the time as well as the effort to get involved in their communities yet alone their blocks by starting a neighborhood block club. We as blacks are quick to dismiss or speak badly about those we don’t agree with or we like to say that those that don’t think about race or speak of race in the black community are foolish or out of touch.

Black people wake up and realize that what we are facing today is not merely the ramifications of slavery and Jim Crow but it is also a part of us as black people losing our communal way. Look around our black communities and our black cities and the common trend that I guarantee that we will all see is that the talented tenth of our black race no longer reside in the impoverished black communities and have created new black communities within urban areas that weren’t black areas before or they have moved to the suburbs. While it is nothing wrong with that but what is wrong is, what does that mean for the blacks that they left behind? What does moving out of urban black cities mean for the development of black communities and most of all what does it mean for dealing with the disparities that we as black people face?

We as black people claim that we have had enough with the racial, economic and health issue comments and how we intend to solve the problems of Americans as my Que brother said to me but we continue to be the ones to speak of everything in terms of race no matter what the issue is. While we didn’t start the name calling as black people, we are sure quick to say that everything that happens between people of color and whites racist. Black people wake up and realize that if we continue to go down this path of claiming that our pitfalls are racists or someone else’s fault rather than part of it being our own fault than what message are we sending to future generations of blacks.

Are we telling our black youth that the reason they are not getting an adequate or decent education is the white man’s fault and the reason why they can’t get healthcare is the white man’s fault? What signal are we really telling our youth? Are we telling our youth that the reason why they are poor is because of the white man and the reason why their mother or father or even their grandparents doesn’t have a high school diploma or a college diploma is because the white man prevented that? While in some cases that might be true but in all cases it being true is just not right. Black people we are holding each other back from prosperity. We are our own worst nightmare and no matter how much we try to blame others for the shortfalls of us as a people, we just need to look in the mirror and blame our selves.

While we should teach our youth to be sensitive to the issue of race and their own blackness but not to use it as an excuse or a crutch for why they can’t get ahead but in order to gain pride in who they are and to understand that there might be some people even within the black community who use race to divide us as people rather than unite us. We can’t continue to sit up here as black people and attack each other’s beliefs and values without understand that all black people are not the same just like all people are not the same. We can’t assume because one is black that they experienced all the hardships as other blacks or used to dealing with black people because nothing can be farther from the truth. We as black people have to respect each other but most of all we must understand that if we are to get ahead as a society than we have to uplift each other, guide each other and most of all be there for each other through the good and the bad.

Black people we can’t continue to degrade each other and label each other names simply because one black person doesn’t think you or me. If we are to get ahead as a black community than we must understand that not all blacks believe in abortions, not all blacks believe in affirmative action and not all blacks believe in government programs. This is understandable because some blacks believe in blacks helping blacks to succeed which is what Black Nationalism was about. Some blacks believe that we as blacks need to accept responsibility for our own actions and our own lives by pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps through obtaining the best education possible, by reading often and by never accepting no for an answer but most of all never settling even when you achieve one goal. Blacks come from all walks of life and believe in different things but as much as our race brings us together, we need to look beyond race when judging our fellow black men and women.

We as blacks have to accept responsibility for our own actions and our own attitudes. No longer can we continue to blame others for our shortfalls when we have more black millionaires and billionaires than ever before. We have more black politicians than ever before and more blacks with Ph.D.’s, J.D.’s, M.D.’s and Master degrees than ever before. We can’t continue to blame others for our shortcomings as black people when we have more black CEOs than ever and we have more blacks as teachers, professors and other administrative positions in educational facilities both pre-secondary and post-secondary. We have more black clergy and more black mega churches than any other time in our history. So black people we have come far as a people but we still have farther to go. We can’t continue to blame others for our own misfortunes when we have more black single families than any other time in our history, we have more black man in prison than on college campuses and we have more blacks unemployed since the Great Depression. Come on black people, we have more blacks with HIV/AIDS, more black abortions than ever before and more black teen pregnancies than any other race. Black people wake up and understand that black on black crime in urban communities are at its highest since the 1980s and black on black youth violence in areas like Chicago are the worst it has ever be and perhaps even worse than the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of people being shot.

These are some of the issues that we face as black people all the while we have gained in other areas. For we can’t continue to blame others for children growing up in fatherless homes and when we as a community have not worked to deal with this issue and create a community for our children to succeed despite the lack of a male precise inside the home. Black people we are holding each other back from prosperity. We are the ones who think that if we race bait and play the color card that perhaps we will get ahead in life but if we look at President Barack Obama and use him as our example for our children to follow as well as ourselves than we will understand that understanding your race is okay but using it as an excuse to not succeed or want more is not okay. We as black people must understand that our race is not reason for us to accept an inferior education or inadequate city or governmental services from those who are elected to provide us with certain living conditions that many affluent people receive. We as black people must not accept poverty as a way of life but instead we need to understand that what we are today doesn’t always have to be what we are tomorrow.

These are the lessons that we need to teach to our youth and future generations of blacks if we are to get ahead as black people. No longer can we play the race card or use race baiting to achieve our goals as a society. No longer can we accept black leaders who use race as an opportunity to obtain wealth and no longer can we condone those organizations use racial issues as an opportunity to gain television time or newspaper clippings. Black people we have to stand up now and take back our communities and teach our youth that they are more than what they think they are. We must teach our youth and future generations that just because the generations before them didn’t achieve all they could, they worked for them to obtain a free and adequate education so that they can continue the fight for justice and equality for all. Black people we have to wake up and realize that if we are to succeed as a group rather than as individuals, it will take all of us working together to help one another, to encourage one another and most of all to understand one another to come to a common ground on what we all can work together on to achieve.

No longer can we ignore the fact that we as black people have been holding each other back and no longer can we continue to blame others for us a people for not achieving success when some of our own people love to hold us back. Blacks, it is time to stop playing victim and it is time to work toward achieving our goals rather than passing blame for it. If not now than when.

President Obama: Help Me Help Our HBCUs--By Tom Joyner

Mr. President, I have been a major supporter of yours from the start because I believed you were the best person for the job because I never dreamed in my lifetime that this would happen. You've been doing an amazing job considering that you took over the country at a time when so much is happening. But I do have a concern about one of your recent decisions. I'm calling on you to listen to the tens of thousands of alumni, faculty, administration and students of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) who want you to seriously reconsider your changes to the 2010 federal budget. We want you to extend the $85 million that was included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 and is slated to expire in 2009.

I realize you're dealing with a budget that's in the trillions of dollars, but let me tell you, as a long time supporter and cheerleader for black colleges, literally every single dollar helps to keep their doors open at these institutions. This $85 million is absolutely crucial for many of the colleges to make sure every student attending these schools have the best infrastructure possible. That means these schools need the direct funds that the federal government has allocated since 2007 to help provide comfortable dormitories, fully furnished classrooms, research labs, libraries and so many things that contribute to these students getting a quality education. The fact is the funding for many HBCUs eligible to receive federal funds has not kept pace with the increasing needs for the institutions.

I've been reading about how you and Secretary [Arne] Duncan are increasing the amount of money for PELL Grants, which means more students may be able to get sorely needed dollars to attend college. That's what my Foundation has been doing for the past 11 years, and the more help these students get to stay in school the better. Don't hesitate one minute in providing those funds, but, Mr. President, you can't have it both ways. If you cut funding that directly affects the operations of these HBCUs, then some of these schools may not be around to educate the students receiving those PELL grants.

Let me try to break it down even further. There are more than 200,000 students who are benefiting from getting an education at an HBCU. It's safe to say that many of these students may be a first generation college student who may have never have had a chance to even get a college degree if it weren't for an HBCU. Let's be honest. Not every one can go -- or get accepted -- to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or some of the major colleges around the country. What I know from my own personal experience - and from talking to and getting hugs from the thousands of students, their Moms, Dads, PawPaws and MoMos over the years -- is that many of these students are grateful to have had the opportunity to go to college. Period. What black colleges have given them is love, nurturing and confidence to take on the world. Just listen to what Dr. Billy Hawkins, president of Talladega (AL) College said during a panel discussion among black college presidents on my annual Tom Joyner Foundation fundraiser, the Fantastic Voyage(TM): "I worked 20 years at white institutions, but students don't get the nurturing they get at a black college."

But more than the touchy-feely stuff, black colleges are producing huge results. For example, here are some very impressive statistics from the National Association For Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, better known as NAFEO: Twenty-four percent (24%) of all PhDs earned each year by African Americans are conferred by twenty four (24) HBCUs; Eighteen (18) of the top twenty-three (23) producers of African Americans who go on to receive science related PhDs are HBCUs; Four (4) of the top ten (10) producers of successful African American medical school applicants are HBCUs. These HBCUs produce twenty percent (20%) more African American applicants than the other six (6) institutions combined; Eight (8) of the top ten (10) producers of African American engineers are HBCUs.

Whenever I'm reminded of these statistics, I can't help but smile. I spend a lot of my time sharing this information with the world because most of the time you hear only about how bad black colleges are doing. Grant it, I'll be the first to tell you some of our black colleges are teetering on the brink of survival, but there are still many black colleges that are serving a critical role in producing future doctors, lawyers, teachers, athletes and engineers. Dr. Diane Suber, president of Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, NC, said she and her administration have to make tough choices all the time, and most importantly they realize they can not be all things to all people. "It's challenging for us to remain competitive and remain true to our mission," Suber said. "Our quality of education is not substandard. Yes, it could be better if we had more money, but we provide outstanding educational opportunities."

So, I ask you, Mr. President, restore that $85 million today! This small amount is the kind of investment that will truly impact the lives of thousands of black men and women who will end up helping you bring about the change you talked about during your campaign.

Tom Joyner, host of the nationally syndicated radio show that reaches more than eight million listeners every week, is the founder and chairman of the 11-year-old Tom Joyner Foundation.

CONTACT:
Neil Foote
Tom Joyner Foundation
214-448-3765
neil@neilfoote.com

The New NAACP: Armed and Ready for the Silver Rights Movement by Akindele Akinyemi

In many cases most Black Republicans I know feel that the NAACP cater to the special interest of the left such as Planned Parenthood and the National Teacher Association. They also cater to the Democratic Party. While most of this is true we must acknowledge the past 100 years of the NAACP.

If W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells were alive today both would be turning over in their grave to see the very organization that they help founded in 1909 become something less than. The NAACP was established on February 12th of that year, the 100th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the president who freed the slaves with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

However, we have an obligation to make the next 100 years of the NAACP more profound and impactful.

The first thing we need to do is address the "C" in NAACP. "Colored" is such an outdated word used to describe Blacks that I personally take offense to hear anyone, Black or White, use it. We are in the 21st century.

The second thing is reducing the number of board members on the NAACP. 64 people on Board of Directors for the National NAACP is too much and should be shrunk to 24 members at the most.

Now do not get me wrong the NAACP has great lumanaries including General Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dr. Dorothy I. Height and Andrew Young.

But this is what I would like to address.

We are no longer in the civil rights movement of the 1960s but the silver rights movement of the 21st century. We have successfully integrated the lunch counters but we are still struggling to integrate the dollar. We have an economic crisis domestically and globally.

Before the economic crisis we had too much access to leverage (debt), too much confidence, and not enough knowledge (financial literacy). Today we seem to have too little access to credit, and too little consumer confidence, which is in part a result of having, guess what - no understanding of how money and the system really works.

When you add to this the number of job losses tied to an economy trying to de-leverage at the same time, across broad swatches of industry in America and around the world, and you have a perfect storm. If you thought the banking crisis was bad, think what happens if there is a fundamental breakdown of consumer confidence in America; a nation where 70% of the $14 trillion U.S. economy is on the back of the U.S. consumer. Sounds insane doesn't it?

The NAACP, through its young adults, can create a new movement of silver rights activists. This movement must be a campaign around direct-action. Direct action economic change; direct-action social change; direct-action educational change -- in the lives of real people, living in real communities. But we need to understand that the NAACP mission should never just be local but global. Understanding that we are global citizens who must create solutions for global issues across the our world is necessary to build economic engines to become self-sufficient without always seeking an handout but a handup.

The NAACP must come to reality when it comes to educational reform. Trying to support public education in urban areas must be more than just ostracizing vouchers, tax credits and charter schools. Here in the State of Michigan we have well over 100,000 students enrolled in charter schools statewide. How can we continue to ignore the number of students and parents involved in charter schools and not give them a chance?

For example, charter public schools in Detroit exceed the local district on 24 of 27 tests - up from 20 last year. They tie on two additional tests and are within 1 point on the remaining exam. Yet, at any given forum the NAACP, in many cases, still ignore charters and cater to the failing Detroit Public School System. It's time to engage all of our stakeholders in education to create a solution.

I mean, has the NAACP ever reached out to groups like BAEO or MAPSA or the Center for Educational Reform?

The NAACP also ignore the need for vouchers in chronically failing school districts. When I look at the Congressional Report Card and look under Sen. Dick Durbin from Illinois will he receive an "A" from the NAACP for pushing for the elimination of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship that help hundreds of black children in Washington D.C.? Will the Republicans who voted against this receive an "F" for supporting vouchers? It's time to scrap the report card method unless we are going to be fair and balanced.

According to The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts, a study published by Civic Enterprises that shared the perspectives of high school dropouts, approximately one-third of all children, and 50% of minorities in public schools, drop out of high school nationwide. In many of the nation’s “dropout factories,” the percentage of dropouts far outpaces the percentage of graduates.

This is not good for the 21st century way of thinking, and it is an economic death sentence if not changed for black communities nationwide, or almost 100 million Americans. Can we afford to write-off almost 100 million Americans, or approximately a third of our nation’s population?

Stakeholders must show kids the relevancy of education is to teach them that they have ownership of their grades, academic performance and destiny. Teach them language of money at an early age.

Without question, financial literacy is the means by which one moves from simply avoiding the poverty trap to embracing a true prosperity agenda; for themselves, their families and their communities.

Our children deserve better and to be quiet on this issue and not include all educational partners at the table is not a realistic way of solving the educational crisis. If the NAACP is going to continue being the boldest then we need to see a philosophical shift in ideology in terms of educational attainment and direction.

We cannot also allow our Historically Black Colleges and Universities to slide. They play a revolutionary role in changing the direction of both our educational community as well as rebuilding our middle-class in the inner city. We need more than just starting NAACP chapters and protesting when we disagree with Clarence Thomas or Ward Connerly.

Our civil rights movement was waged in the streets of America. Today the movement will be waged in the suites of America; from the corporate boardroom to government offices, to the classroom of our children.

And it will be not so much protest based, although some protesting of some might indeed be needed from time to time, as partnership based. The issues in the silver rights era will be that of changing one's perspective, not their policies. Of real and measurable progress and not just passionate and powerful preaching - although we could still use some of that too.

Where the civil rights movement was principally about race and the color line, silver rights will be principally about issues of class and poverty. And as civil rights leaders needed partners and coalitions, new era silver rights leaders will need the same, starting with a powerful and empowering partnership with civil rights movement leaders themselves.

Poverty shown to the world over, through the eyes of Katrina. The image of the Katrina victim who could not receive their $2,000 in FEMA funding because they did not have a bank account to wire it to. More than 50 million Americans today have no bank account, in this, the richest country in the world.

This is where the NAACP needs to move if it wants to continue being relevant. We not just only have a Black President (Barack Obama) but a Black Chairman of the Republican Party (Michael Steele). Recently, both men addressed the NAACP . Political diversity is necessary in the next phase of the NAACP. To continue calling Black Republicans names and brushing us off (even though some of us are members of the NAACP such as Michael Steele and Dr. Alveda King) is negative and will further tarnish the image of the NAACP by showcasing the image that it is a left-wing of the Democratic Party.

The NAACP also must take a stand on local issues that are affecting the Black community such as the ever growing drug trade, the arms race in our community (guns), and expressing the need for personal responsibility. If President Obama is urging people to have their children to turn off the XBOX and control your home then the NAACP must lead the way when it comes to moral issues. That does not mean the NAACP must become a faith-based organization but with the number of clergy who are life members of the NAACP I cannot understand why would you allow Planned Parenthood to sponsor your events, and other interest groups that has harmed our community? Abortion is genocide, the destruction of marriage in the Black community is genocide, the failure of education in our community is genocide and the feminization of men in our community has equated into genocide because our men have allowed their emotions, through the gun, to decide who lives and who dies.

Not addressing the ever-growing prison culture in our community has led to chaos and disorder. We have more people walking around confused about relationships, more people walking around with 10 or more tattoos on their bodies, illiteracy is extremely high, sagging our pants and women wearing scarfs in public looking like slaves. The NAACP must join forces with other faith-based and non-profit organizations who are dedicated to create a counterculture to combat these negative forces.

If the NAACP wants to be taken seriously for the next 100 years then allow our young adults in the organization, like current CEO Ben Jealous, to make unpopular decisions, take a serious stand on educational reform efforts and enter the silver rights era. Otherwise, we will continue going to the NAACP dinners every year at Cobo Hall to look at each other eat while our community is going to hell in a handbasket.

--
Education is a passport to freedom.

Obama: Civil rights leaders paved way for him--By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

President Barack Obama on Thursday traced his historic rise to power to the vigor and valor of black civil rights leaders, telling the NAACP that the sacrifice of others "began the journey that has led me here." The nation's first black president bluntly warned, though, that racial barriers persist.

"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America," the president said in honoring the organization's 100th convention.

Painting himself as the beneficiary of the NAACP's work, Obama cited historical figures from W.E.B. DuBois to Thurgood Marshall to explain how the path to the presidency was cleared by visionaries.

Obama's remarks, steeped in his personal biography as the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, challenged the audience — those in the room and those beyond — to take greater responsibility for their own future. He told parents to take a more active role and residents to pay better attention to their schools.

Rousing up a friendly crowd, Obama made his first speech so directly linked with race since he took office; the White House says he worked on it for about two weeks. Implicit in his appearance: He is seeking the backing of the powerful NAACP and its members for his ambitious domestic agenda.

The president said that in the current down economy, blacks are suffering high unemployment and are afflicted with more diseases but are less likely to own health insurance. He said that the African-American child is about five times as likely as a white child to be sent to jail.

Obama touted education as essential to improving the lives of all children. He said the state of schools is an American problem, not an African-American one.

"You know what I'm talking about. There's a reason the story of the civil rights movement was written in our schools. There's a reason Thurgood Marshall took up the cause of Linda Brown. There's a reason the Little Rock Nine defied a governor and a mob," Obama said. "It's because there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child's God-given potential."

"We have to say to our children, `Yes, if you're African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not,'" Obama said, returning to his tough-love message familiar from his two-year presidential campaign.

"But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school," he said. "No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands and don't you forget that."

Obama expanded his message of equal rights beyond the black communities. He said many Americans still face discrimination.

Racism, he said, is felt "by African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights."

Obama also pressed for NAACP members to encourage their young people to find new role models beyond sports or music.

"I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers," Obama said. "I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States."

To bolster his argument that it's within their reach, he cited his own biography, growing up with a single mother.

"I don't come from a lot of wealth. I got into my share of trouble as a kid. My life could easily have taken a turn for the worse. But that mother of mine gave me love; she pushed me, and cared about my education; she took no lip and taught me right from wrong," Obama said. "Because of her, I had a chance to make the most of my abilities. I had the chance to make the most of my opportunities. I had the chance to make the most of life."

NAACP to Obama: We want more--By: Nia-Malika Henderson

When President Barack Obama takes the stage here Thursday night at the NAACP’s annual conference, he will be greeted by a base of black supporters who see him as the crowning achievement in the struggle for civil rights. Six months into his presidency, there are few signs that black support for Obama is softening.

Yet, many are hoping to hear from Obama something that they have yet to hear—specific plans to address the black agenda. Obama’s broad approach to race has left some cold and has fueled the idea that he is punting on the issue and ignoring the specificity of the problems in the black community where, for instance, the unemployment rate is nearly 15 percent, compared to 9 percent nationwide.

They might be disappointed. White House aides said Obama will touch on the organization’s accomplishments, cast himself as a beneficiary, emphasize the need for personal responsibility and talk broadly about his domestic agenda, but not unveil any specific policy.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous praised Obama for several early steps in his presidency but said he wants to hear from Obama a commitment to ending discrimination in his remarks tonight, and a recognition of the work of the NAACP, celebrating its 100th anniversary.

"He ensured that a significant amount of money stayed in the stimulus bill for public schools. He appointed Attorney General [Eric] Holder and soon-to-be Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor, all of those are significant steps,” Jealous said. “In just the six months he has delivered tangible results and he has set the stage for even bigger things to come . . .”

Yet if his remarks amount to a rah-rah speech about the NAACP, then “people will be pretty happy and then they will wake up the next day feeling empty,” Jealous said.

Just hours before his speech, Obama nominated the associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Jacqueline A. Berrien, to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

National Urban League President Marc Morial said Obama has “gotten off to a quick and decisive” start, but said that his organization “is not a cheering squad 100 percent of the time.”

“We are going to give him our honest views if we don’t agree with the direction of his administration,” said Morial, who heads the National Urban League. “We are serious about economic issues, jobs, health and housing and minority businesses.”

The disparities are well known and were ticked off by Morial in a report on the state of black America. The report talked of two black Americas, one prosperous and politically engaged, and another, beset by social problems and inequities—high incarceration, foreclosure, drop out, and unemployment rates.

Yet Obama has rarely spoken directly of those problems, choosing instead a one-size-fits-all approach when, for instance, he was asked whether he would do any targeted intervention to reduce the black unemployment rate.

“[T]he best thing that I can do for the African American community or the Latino community or the Asian community, whatever community, is to get the economy as a whole moving…. if I don't do that, then I'm not going to be able to help anybody,” he said. “So part of what we want to do is to find tools that will give people more opportunity, but the most important thing I can do is to lift the economy overall. And that's what my strategy is focused on.”

In a taped speech in February at the “State of the Black Union” conference Obama acknowledged the high black unemployment rate and said that “tough times for America often mean tougher times for African-Americans.” He called his agenda a progressive one that would make a big difference to the black community.

With Holder as the attorney general, many believe that issues like the high incarceration rate, sentencing disparities, and racial profiling will finally be addressed.

Holder won plaudits from many for coming out early on in a speech during Black History month, calling America a “nation of cowards” for not talking more openly about race. But Obama backed away from the comments, signaling a more cautious, and some say unsatisfying, approach to racial issues. Still, his support remains strong.

“The reality is, Barack Obama can go into some black audiences and read the phone book and people would say that’s the best sounding phone book I have ever heard before. We don’t want a whole lot from him, not yet at least,” said Michael Fauntroy, a public policy professor at George Mason University.

“But there is a small and growing sentiment among some African Americans that perhaps we need a more forward and overt conversations about some things. He is taking the approach that in dealing with the economy and health care that he is dealing with black issues, but there are some other issues that have a unique impact on African Americans.”

Fauntroy added that the Obama’s emphasis on personal responsibility is not enough.

“Not everything can be addressed through talk. I want to hear some policy prescriptions,” he said. “Not just pull up your pants. We know that already.”

A recent New York Times story showed that black unemployment in New York rose four times as fast as white unemployment—80,000 more blacks than whites are unemployed, even though whites outnumber blacks by 1.5 million.

Jesse Jackson, Sr. referenced those findings in talking about the need for a specific focus on the disparities. He said that Obama “has made the right moves in the right direction…and he has a trust surplus,” and expected that Obama will say tonight that he is “grateful for a 100 years of struggle for freedom.”

But he also said that there is a need for a more targeted stimulus.

“Rising tides will not lift all boats. Some boats are locked in and getting them out requires investment. Urban America will recover when it’s targeted,” Jackson said. “I think he has opened the window for hope and opportunity, but those who have the most need, whether they are inner city blacks or whites in Appalachia, must be targeted. The banks were targeted -- now the most unemployed need a targeted stimulus.”

With the White House Office of Urban Affairs, and with the stimulus funds, some see an opportunity to do just that and address the disparities, without getting into race.

“As Obama said, metropolitan areas can’t be looked on as problems, but solutions. Who lives in metropolitan areas? You upgrade the education there, the transportation there, you fight the crime there. Who benefits?” said former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder said. “I don’t think it can be listed and called the black agenda. I think it should be an agenda that can uplift people who would be left out and that includes African-Americans. You do what you need to do with it without calling it that.”

Strategically, that kind of raceless, universal approach served Obama well in the campaign, and he was able to hold racial issues at arms length, with the implicit understanding among blacks that he couldn’t be “the black president.” But with that tacit agreement, there were also expectations, University of Maryland professor Ron Walters said.

“They want the agenda to be recognized but they are reluctant to press it. There is going to be a lot of listening going on to see if he begins to press aspects of this agenda,” said Walters, who ran Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns. “And there’s going to be a ‘where’s the beef, come to Jesus’ meeting somewhere down the line without any concrete action.”

Obama to young: Aspire to surpass your role models--By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

President Barack Obama is telling the nation's oldest civil rights organization that government, families and neighborhoods must work together to improve communities.

Obama also planned to urge young people to aspire to surpass their role models and resist the lure of mediocrity during a speech Thursday to the NAACP. White House aides said the president did not intend to introduce new programs or policy, instead striking an inspirational tone as the civil rights group gathers for its 100th annual convention.

Obama, the first black president, plans to take a restrained tone during his evening remarks instead of a raucous celebration of his history-making campaign, officials said before he flew to New York. White House aides sought to play down the expectations of the speech, the first so directly linked with race since Obama took office.

"I think the first speech to black America, the first speech to white America, the first speech to America was the inaugural address," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday.

Implicit in the appearance, Obama is seeking the backing of the powerful NAACP and its members for his ambitious domestic agenda. For all their shared interests, White House aides cautioned that the group's leadership had not guaranteed its support of all of Obama's priorities.

"We will be the people at the end of the day who help make him do what he knows he should do. We will help create the room for (Obama) to fulfill, I think, his own aspirations for his presidency," NAACP President Benjamin Jealous told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this year.

"If he aspires to be the next Abraham Lincoln, I aspire to be his Frederick Douglass," Jealous said, referring to the slave-turned-abolitionist who pressed a cautious Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Every president since 1909 has visited the NAACP at least once, although some more frequently than others. President George W. Bush skipped the first five meetings before eventually addressing the group in 2006. For Obama, skipping his first invitation and the centennial festivities was not an option.

White House aides said Obama's speech would celebrate the organization's history and briefly touch on the debate about what the NAACP's next century should bring.

Jealous has pushed his organization to expand its civil rights work beyond black causes to broader human rights. Some members of his organization have resisted, arguing that much work remains to create racial equality in this country.

"The president being black gives us no advantage," Jealous told the AP.

"Our agenda as we head into our second century as a civil rights organization is also to revive our legacy as a human rights organization," he said.

White House aides cautioned that Obama wouldn't wade too deeply into those decisions, aware his role was not to dictate the organization's mission but to celebrate it. Instead, he would seek to reinforce the early pieces of an urban agenda he outlined Monday.

"I think black America has watched this president work on the economy," Gibbs said. "I think black America has watched this president work on health care — an issue of great concern — (and) education."

100 Years Old, NAACP Debates Its Current Role--By Krissah Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 12, 2009

NEW YORK -- In the beginning, the purpose of the nation's oldest civil rights organization was well defined: to achieve equal justice under the law for black Americans.

One hundred years later, as 5,000 members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gather here to set an agenda, little is so clear-cut.

The NAACP faces a slew of questions: Has the election of the first black U.S. president marked the end of the civil rights agenda? Must an organization traditionally focused on the plight of black Americans expand its mission? What should a black civil rights organization do in 2009?

The NAACP has long been a prism through which to view the puzzle of race in America, and the current uncertainty promises to be a presence at its week-long centennial convention, which will include addresses from President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The association's president, Benjamin Todd Jealous -- who at 36 is the youngest person to ever lead the organization -- acknowledges the pride his membership takes in hosting the first black president and attorney general but argues that their ascension does not negate the need for the NAACP. In many ways, the convention this week sets out to prove that point.

Jealous began the year by laying out his vision for an organization focused not solely on old civil rights battles, but on human rights as well. He envisions an NAACP primarily serving a black constituency but with a broader outlook.

"We are a very black organization, but we are not a black organization. There is a difference. It's the difference between being able to play the black position on the field and being able to play any position," Jealous said. "We are from our origin a multiracial, multiethnic human rights organization."

In his approach is a subtle nod to the need to respond to modern times by recalibrating the NAACP's approach to issues of race. The association, which claims more than half a million members, will host conversations on the impact of racial disparities in the criminal justice system on African American and Latino communities and on the meaning of recent Supreme Court decisions as they relate to affirmative action. It will also host a diverse panel of youth activists who are working with people of various races, ethnicities and backgrounds to deal with national and global human rights issues.

"We have succeeded in many ways -- Obama and Holder are examples of that -- but we are very much focused on the work ahead," Jealous said yesterday at the convention's opening news conference, standing with the president of the LatinoJustice PRLDEF to show solidarity in their support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Hazel N. Dukes, longtime president of the NAACP New York State Conference, agreed, saying, "The NAACP is alive and well." Referring to the 2,000 young people attending sessions this week, she said, "We're teaching them our history."

But appreciating the association's venerable history and finding a way forward are separate issues, historians and young activists said.

David Garrow, a civil rights historian and author of the book "Bearing the Cross," a biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., argues that there has been a shift away from the traditional notion of black civil rights because of the steady growth in black civic participation and decline of civil rights-era protest organizations.

So is NAACP at 100 facing the end of the civil rights era?

"It's just sort of a definitional question," Garrow said. "It's a conundrum of the label. . . . The transition from one era to another in terms of African American civil rights is really marked by the movement of African Americans into civic life and government. One could say that the election of Barack Obama marks the end of an era. It signifies the complete inclusion of black people at all levels of politics."

The presence of a black man in the nation's highest office has become a stand-in for the 1960s civil rights movement's ideal of fuller social integration of black and white communities, Garrow said. Core concerns of that time, such as geographic integration and redistribution of income, are no longer central to the discussion.

Young activists are defining their work in different terms. Basheer Jones, a 24-year-old talk radio host in Cleveland, is not a member of the NAACP; he says the organization has been out of touch. But he is attending his first NAACP convention -- at the invitation of an older member -- and calls himself a community activist, not a civil rights activist.

"This new generation of leadership has to be different. We have to have the same courage and enthusiasm, but we have to unite a little bit more despite your religion, your socioeconomic status," said Jones, who believes the current struggle is class-based. "It's a different time."

Rinku Sen, an Oakland activist who is president of the Applied Research Center, a think tank on race, said the landscape for a civil rights agenda has shifted with the country's demographics. She sees the NAACP's decision to broaden its mission beyond the black community as timely but probably difficult.

"There are a lot of new players in the game as immigrant communities have matured," Sen said. "People have the urge to come together but often find it difficult to build staying power for those alliances, and quite a lot of that loops back to racial dynamics and our inability to resolve them. There are real differences in how groups pushing for racial justice experience the problem. African Americans, Latino immigrants and South Asian Muslims don't fit in exactly the same place in the hierarchy."

Darren Hutchinson, a professor at American University's Washington College of Law, said the NAACP may face an even larger problem moving into its second century.

Americans are dealing with "racial exhaustion," he said. "A lot of people are tired of talking about race. They have to find a new language for dealing with these issues."

Jewel Shears, who joined the New Jersey chapter of the NAACP last week, said the weariness some have about the subject inspired her activism. "Race is something that we have to keep talking about with all of the disparities that exist," she said. "We have to do our due diligence to help the cause."

Jealous pointed to a "constant drumbeat of racism" to make his point.

"On the one hand, we see the image of a black man getting off Air Force One. On the other hand, we see photos of kids getting turned away from a swimming pool," he said. "We can't be post-racial until we are post-racism, and until we get there, we will be on the watch."

NAACP At 100: Needed Now More than Ever--by Dr. Ronald Walters, NNPA Columnist

Originally posted 7/8/2009

I admit that, like most of us, I am an NAACP baby. Born in the struggle to desegregate the Dockum Drug Store in Wichita, Kansas in 1958 two years before the Greensboro sit-in, as a leader of the NAACP Youth Council. Over the years, as a political analysts, I have been asked whether the organization “is still relevant.” On its 100th birthday, I am clear that it is still relevant, even though we have a Black president sitting in the White House, because I know that at some point, they will have to use their access to that House to ask President Obama to do something for Black folks.

Whether he responds is a different story, but to be in the position to make the demand is important because in 2009 we are still not yet free. Well, some of us believe that we are free because we have achieved the material trappings of success. But I remember billionaire Bob Johnson wanting to start up an airline only to have mysterious problems and I remember his wife, Sheila, also a billionaire, having problems opening up a spa in hunt country, Virginia. But most of all I remember Michael Jackson in this hour, a heroic but also a tragic figure who eventually became a captive of the success he engendered to the point that it killed him. In all of his success, because of the lack of a normal upbringing and a distorted cultural self-image, even Michael was not free.

In this economic recession, I most often wonder about those who were broke and busted before it began; they are now at the back of the line once again, facing the prospect of having to start the game of life way back behind the newly poor, the newly unemployed, and the newly un-housed. With an unemployment rate approaching 20 percent, many Blacks will have to climb a long way back to achieve economic parity with the rest of the nation.

Then, those in our community who were attracted by subprime mortgages because they didn’t quite have the standard resources are, in many cases, worse off now and will be for some time to come. I worry about the tortuous fight for health care and the fact that Blacks constitute 20 percent of the 47 million uninsured and whether the eventual plan will retain a mandate for employers to insure workers. Moreover, since George Bush didn’t do anything to help close the health care gaps, what will there be in a generalized health care program that has special relevance to blacks.

I also worry about the state of public education for the working class and whether they will be able to obtain jobs in an economy that is growing more technologically sophisticated. We are bailing out on public education with no clear strategy in mind except charter schools that do not serve the masses.

Who will carry the fight to achieve the unfinished business of equality in these and other sectors of American life? Of course, there will be Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jackson and others who are vitally needed to raise questions that others – sometimes even the NAACP – won’t, or may be late getting to. But there is no substitute in my mind for the fact that over the years the NAACP has built the institutional image and local strength to continue to be a major resource in whatever battles rage.

I mention the locals because I always have to remind journalists who ask the question of relevance – “which NAACP are you talking about?” Many of the questions have come because of problems at the National office, but the work of the organization predominantly takes place in cities and hamlets where leaders, like Kevin Miles of Wichita, Kansas (who has won two consecutive Thalheimer Awards for chapter excellence) create innovative programs that serve youth and maintain challenges to racial discrimination for adults.

This is the place where local citizens cry out for help and although most of the calls, letter and emails never seen by National, this chapter system constitutes the core of the vibrancy and the ser vice of the organization.

The National office is important because it serves politics and policy and many of the problems I have referred to need policy solutions and even when the NAACP may not be the prime sponsor of a measure, legislators check with Hillary Shelton, the organization’s expert on the Hill, to see if the language of a bill makes sense. That office also produces a Report Card that acts as a standard of accountability for votes in the House and Senate on issues that are favorable to African-Americans. It is a useful resource when it comes times for citizens to vote, or for some of us to analyze a political record.

So, I want to send a hearty “Happy Birthday” to the NAACP and cudos to its new President Ben Jealous who is bringing the kind of fire I believed that he would in igniting a new generation of leadership for the organization.

But the “relevance” of the organization is vested in our continued lack of equality and so, we will need the NAACP for a long, long time.

Ronald Walters is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland College Park.

Is the NAACP Still Relevant?--by Anson Asaka

Posted: April 24, 2008@ 5:12 pm

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.

Overall, blacks still occupy the lower rungs of American society. Stark racial disparities continue to exist in economics, education, health and criminal justice. We lag far behind economically. According to the Institute for Policy Studies’ report, “it will take 537 more years for blacks to reach income equality with whites if the income gap continues to close at the same rate.”[1] 47.2 % of blacks own homes compared to 75.2% for whites.[2] The Institute’s report states that at the current rate of improvement, “it will take 634 years to reach equality in terms of household wealth.”[3] As noted in The Covenant with Black America, African Americans have a median net worth of $5,998, compared to $88,651 for whites.[4] “32 percent of African Americans have a zero or negative net worth.”[5] The black unemployment rate is twice the white unemployment rate.[6] According to the National Urban League’s State of Black American 2007, nearly 25 percent of blacks live below the poverty line, three times the percentage for whites.[7]

In education, “of black 16 to 24 year olds, 13 percent have not earned a high school diploma or GED; 7 percent of white young people are without a high school credential.”[8] The African American college graduation rate is 61% of the white rate. At the current rate of improvement, “the inequality in college graduation between Blacks and whites will linger until 2087.”[9]

In health, “black infants are nearly 2.5 times more likely than white infants to die before their first birthday.”[10] Blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, but constitute 56 percent annually of new HIV infections.[11] “Black women are diagnosed with AIDS at a rate 25 times that of white women.”[12]

The scales of justice are balanced against African Americans. Blacks constitute 43.9 percent of the state and federal prison population.[13] “One of every three black males born today can expect to go to jail in his lifetime.”[14] 1.4 million Black men or 13 percent have currently or permanently lost their right to vote as a result of a felony conviction.[15] “Youth of all races sell and use drugs at similar rates, but black youth represent 60-75 percent of drug arrest today.”[16]

From the Rodney King case to the Sean Bell case, African Americans continue to be victims of police misconduct and brutality. “From 1995 to 2000, there were almost 10,000 cases of police use of excessive force reported in the United States; blacks made up 47.5 percent of them.”[17] Of the incidents involving police violence on blacks, 84 percent were committed by white officers.[18]

The NAACP is relevant because it continues to address these problems. Through litigation, legislation and direct action, the NAACP continues to fight for equality and justice. In recent years, the NAACP has filed and/or joined predatory lending, employment, housing, education, voting rights and public accommodations litigation. For years, the Association has raised AIDS/HIV awareness and addressed disparities in the health care. The NAACP played a major role in organizing the protest in support of the Jena Six. The Louisiana State Conference continues to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The NAACP helped support legislation addressing the predatory lending crisis, racial disparities in cocaine sentencing, hate crime, children’s health care, deceptive practices in federal elections, head start, D.C. voting rights, employment discrimination and other important issues. To remain informed about the NAACP’s great work, I encourage the readers to regularly visit http://www.naacp.org.

Civil rights are not necessarily permanent. They can be taken away. Anti-affirmative action referendums have had a devastating impact in Michigan and California. Our opponents have filed lawsuits to dilute the strength of the black electorate. Right wing judges seek to reverse the clock of progress. We need the NAACP to protect our hard fought gains. The struggle is not over. The Association must remain on its post.

Instead of criticizing the NAACP, people should join and support the Association.

Anson Asaka
Assistant General Counsel
NAACP

[1] Dedrick Muhammad, 40 Years Later: The Unrealized Dream, The Institute for Policy Studies, April 2008, pp. 5, 9.

[2] Ibid, p. 10.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Marc H Morial, “Accessing Good Jobs, Wealth, and Economic Prosperity,” The Covenant with Black America, Chicago: Third World Press), p. 171, citing, Nikitra S. Bailey, “Predatory Lending: The New Face of Economic Injustice,” Human Rights Magazine, American Bar Association.

[5] Ibid.

[6] The State of Black America 2007, Executive Summary, National Urban League, p. 4.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Edmund W. Gordon, “Establishing a System of Public Education”, The Covenant with Black America, Chicago: Third World Press), p. 33.

[9] Muhammad, p. 7.

[10]David M. Satcher, M.D., “Securing the Right to Healthcare and Well-Being,” The Covenant with Black America, Chicago: Third World Press), p. 8, citing, W. Parker, “Black-White Infant Mortality Disparity in the United States: A Societal Litmus Test,” Public Health Reports, Volume 118, July-August 2003, 336.

[11] Ibid, p. 9, citing, K. Wright, “The Time is Now! The State of AIDS in Black American,” Black AID Institute, Los Angeles, CA, February 2005, pp. 5, 8.

[12] Ibid, citing, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 2003, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CD, Atlanta, GA, Volume 15.

[13] James Bell, “Correcting the System of Unequal Justice,” The Covenant with Black America, Chicago: Third World Press), p. 53, citing, Incarcerated America, Figure 1, http://www.hrw.org/background/usa/incarceration/us042903.pdf, April 2003, Human Rights Watch.

[14] Ibid, citing, Marc Mauer and Ryan Scott King, “Schools and Prisons: 50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education,” http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/brownboard.pdf, The Sentencing Project.

[15] Ibid, citing, “Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States,” http://www.sentecingproject.org/pdfs/1046.pdf, September 2005, the Sentencing Project.

[16] Ibid, citing, Fatema Gunja, “Race and the War on Drugs Position Paper,” http://www.aclu/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=14089, May 2003, ACLU.

[17] Maya Harris, “Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing,” The Covenant with Black America, Chicago: Third World Press), p. 81, citing, “Police Use of Force in America,” International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2001, p. 44.

[18] Ibid.

Barack Obama and the Contours of African-American Social Protest Movements

*[Below is the presentation by Manning Marable to the monthly Labor Left Project meeting in New York City. The Labor Left Project is a group of New York City trade union activists - rank-and-file, staff and leadership. For more information contact: Larry Moskowitz LCMWF2@aol.com. Dr. Marable sent this note following the meeting: "I very much enjoyed our discussion last evening. I have attached the paper 'Barack Obama and the Contours of African-American Social Protest Movements.' This paper will be published in a book edited by my wife, Leith Mullings. The edited volume, 'New Social Movements in the African Diaspora: Challenging Global Apartheid,' is to be published by Palgrave Macmillan later this year. You are free to circulate it to anyone who might interested." -- moderator]*

By MANNING MARABLE

New York City - May 14, 2009

Now, in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience in the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which in the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But when to earth and brute is added an environment of men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned group may take three main forms, - a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite environing opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at various times can be traced in the history of the American Negro, and in the evolution of his successive leaders. W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903[i]

The fundamental impulse behind all major African- American social movements throughout U.S. history has been the quest for "freedom." During much of the long nightmare of human bondage, lasting nearly 250 years, freedom had a clear and unambiguous meaning: the shattering of shackles, the elimination of whips and chains, the reuniting of black families who had been divided and sold apart, the ownership of farms and private property by blacks, and the personal and collective feelings of safety and integrity that are guaranteed by state power and constitutional authority. Deeply embedded within even these notions of black freedom, moreover, were two strategic concepts implying collective action to maximize black civic capacity. The strongest of these was the struggle for equality. Supported primarily but not solely by the African- American middle class, the diverse social movements that championed the cause of equality generally called for the outlawing of racial segregation laws, the granting of blacks' voting rights, and the guarantee of civil liberties and Constitutional rights. A second tendency, drawing upon greater working-class support, can be described as the social movement for collective "self-determination ." Many blacks perceived themselves as an oppressed national minority group, or even a "nation," with a distinctive history, culture, traditions and a unique political history. As such, they had the right to determine for themselves what kinds of political arrangements should define blacks' relationships to the U.S. nation-state. In everyday political terms, African-American activists who favored this perspective since the nineteenth century have called themselves "black nationalists. " Tactically, black nationalist- oriented social movements have encouraged the development of black-owned enterprises, the cultivation of a black business class, the initiation of political, cultural and commercial contacts with Africa, the Caribbean and other regions of the African Diaspora, and the construction of African-centered cultural rituals and identities that reinforce an oppositional politics to the U.S. nation- state.

There have also been specific historical periods within the black experience when the levels of political and economic oppression against African Americans have been so overwhelming and totalitarian, that black leaders have emerged who promoted acquiescence and accommodation to white supremacy. The outstanding example of this was black educator Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and the architect of the notorious "Atlanta Compromise" of 1895, in which blacks surrendered their civil rights, the elective franchise and racial integration in return for segregated black consumer markets, black agricultural development, vocational schools and black-owned institutions. [ii] Washington aggressively opposed black participation in trade unions and rejected coalitions between working class blacks and whites. Politically he supported white conservatives - Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft at the federal level, and conservative Democrats locally in the Deep South. From 1895 to his death in 1915, Washington deployed his influence through a network of hundreds of political operatives, government appointees, newspaper editors, and black entrepreneurs called the "Tuskegee Machine," that favored accommodation politics. Washington's hegemony in African-American politics was challenged by liberal and radical blacks, most powerfully by W. E. B. Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Undoubtedly Du Bois's characterization of a black leadership that adjusts to the "will of the greater group" was a negative reference to Washington.[ iii]

After World War I until the beginning of the 1950s, the general trend of national black politics was usually the struggle for equality. There were of course important exceptions, for brief periods of time. One spectacular model of black nationalist activism in the 1920s, for example, was Jamaican black nationalist Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, which attracted over one million followers.[iv] On the left, socialist A. Philip Randolph initiated the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American union in 1925, and led the first March on Washington Movement in 1941, which forced President Franklin Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8802 outlawing racial discrimination in hiring policies by war industries with federal government contracts.[v]

In the 1920s and 1930s, the racial domain - the predominant sets of power relations between racialized groups, and the political economy and cultural institutions that manufactured "race"- in the United States and South Africa were strikingly similar. The major event that kept the U.S. racial formation from evolving-or degenerating- toward the terrible destiny of South Africa's 1948 election and the triumph of legal apartheid, were the political victories of the left during the Great Depression, led in part by the U.S. Communist Party, and by the growth of an organized black freedom movement especially in U.S. northeastern and Midwestern states. The successful legal reforms of the modern Civil Rights Movement, such as the passage by state legislatures of civil rights enforcement codes and nondiscrimination in employment, began in the 1940s in the North. By the late 1940s, as South African descended into fascist barbarism, the racially segregated U.S. was positioned for a different political future.

From the vantage point of contemporary black history modern African-American leadership inside the United States emerged with two critical events. The first was a legal victory: the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the legality of racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education in May, 1954. The high court declared in its ruling "that in the field of public education the doctrine of `separate but equal' has no place." The following year, the Supreme Court urged the adoption of desegregation plans by public schools "with all deliberate speed." The Brown victory was the culmination of decades of legal and political efforts by the NACCP and other civil rights groups. Finally, over ninety years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans could demand of the federal government their Constitutional rights to a quality education for their children, without the barriers and material inequities of "Jim Crow," the U.S. version of racial apartheid.[vi]

The second political event occurred in Montgomery, Alabama, on 1 December 1955, when Rosa Parks, a respected seamstress and a NAACP local activist, refused to relinquish her seat to a white man, while riding on a segregated public bus. Local black labor union leader E. D. Nixon, outraged by Parks' arrest, urged the African-American community to stage a one-day boycott of Montgomery's buses. A black professional women's group, the Women's Political Council led by educator Jo Ann Robinson, was largely responsible for the successful city-wide mobilization to protest Jim Crow regulations in public transportation. On Monday, 5 December, over 95 percent of all blacks refused to ride the buses. Six thousand black people gathered that night at Montgomery's Holt Street Baptist Church, and reached a consensus to continue the nonviolent protest indefinitely. A black coalition, the Montgomery Improvement Association, was created, which selected a young, little-known Baptist minister as its chief spokesperson- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On 13 November 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the boycott, and struck down the city's segregation ordinance for public transportation. The modern black freedom movement had achieved a decisive victory, and the struggle had found a new spokesperson in the powerful and charismatic Dr. King.[vii]

Historians who study and document the lives of political leaders frequently make the mistake of telling a story from the vantage point of "great" people's (usually men's) lives. To be sure, an unusual number of talented and extraordinary black women and men came into the public arena to push forward measures to outlaw American apartheid: Dr. King; the Reverend David Abernathy, King's closest friend and confidante; the brilliant tactician Bayard Rustin; Medgar Evers, the leader of Mississippi' s NAACP branch who was brutally assassinated in front of his home and family in 1963; Septima Poinsette Clark, who created the Citizenship Education program, which taught thousands of poor and illiterate blacks to read, write, and to register to vote; the courageous Ella Baker, veteran of civil rights organizations, who inspired the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960; the legendary Fannie Lou Hamer, a former cotton field laborer, who co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and challenged the whites- only state delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention; and Gloria Hayes Richardson, who led the desegregation campaign in Cambridge, Maryland.[viii]

Many of the veterans of the Black Freedom Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s would later successfully move into electoral politics, such as King lieutenant Andrew Young, who was elected to Congress in 1972, subsequently appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977, and then was elected mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1981. Another prominent example of public leadership is that of civil rights attorney Marian Wright Edelman. Born in South Carolina in 1939, Edelman earned her law degree at Yale University, and worked with various civil rights groups. In 1968, Edelman was the Congressional liaison for King's Poor People's Campaign. Five years later, she founded the Children's Defense Fund, a nonprofit agency that today is the most prominent advocate group advancing the interests of America's children, regardless of their race or ethnicity.[ix]

How has the challenge of black leadership changed over the past half century? African-American politics in the twenty-first century is defined by what I call the "paradox of integration. " At no previous time in American history have there been more influential and powerful black elected officials and government administrators serving in the nation's capital. Back in 1964, the year that the Civil Rights Act was signed, which outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations, the total number of blacks in Congress was five; the total number of African-American mayors of major U.S. cities, towns and even villages was zero; the combined total of all black officials throughout the United States in 1964 was a paltry 104. This meant, in practical terms, that the voice of black political leadership largely emanated from two sources: the African-American Christian religious community, such as the Progressive Baptist Convention, and its representatives, including leading Civil Rights clergy like Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy, Wyatt T. Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others. Secondly, there was the mainstream Civil Rights community, represented by NAACP national secretary Roy Wilkins, NAACP Legal Defense Fund director Thurgood Marshall, the Congress of Racial Equality leader James Farmer, and Urban League director Whitney Young. These individuals possessed radically different approaches and tactics in their efforts to challenge Jim Crow Segregation. But what they all had in common was a strategic understanding about what the fight was about. Few of them entertained any illusions about trying to get themselves elected to Congress. Their goal was the vigorous advocacy of what they perceived to be blacks' interests, and to use a variety of means-nonviolent demonstrations, economic boycotts, lobbying Congress to pass legislation, etc., to pressure white leaders and institutions to make meaningful concessions.

The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the widespread exodus of white racist "Dixiecrats" into the Republican Party, led to the rise of the African- American electorate as a central component within the national Democratic Party. The number of African- American officials soared: from about 1,100 in 1970 to 3,600 by 1983. The Congressional Black Caucus was formed in 1971 to bring greater leverage within Congress for African-American demands. In March 1972, thousands of blacks met in Gary, Indiana, to form a "National Black Political Assembly," with the explicit idea of constructing a comprehensive "Black Agenda" of public policy issues that would guide the actions of newly elected officials across the country. Some of us involved in the Assembly even anticipated the establishment of an all-Black Independent Political Party, where blacks could exercise the greatest possible freedom in negotiating deals between white parties and institutions. [x]

During the 1980s, political events triggered a fundamental transformation in the internal dynamics of black leadership nationally and in the agendas it pursued. First, the rise of a powerfully assertive Congressional Black Caucus largely superseded the political influence of the NAACP and other civil rights organizations as the chief formulators of national black public policy. Second, the dramatic electoral campaigns of Harold Washington, running successfully for Chicago's mayor in 1983 and 1987, combined with the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, illustrated black vocal protests (aimed chiefly against President Ronald Reagan's conservative public policy agendas) could use electoral politics as a vehicle for mobilizing masses of people of different races and classes behind a black progressive agenda. Jackson did not win the Democratic presidential nomination, but his dramatic success in garnering over seven million popular votes in 1988, and in winning numerous primary elections and caucus states proved that a black or Latino presidential candidate could, under the right set of circumstances, win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Although Jackson was himself a Christian minister, his electoral campaigns shifted the focus of black politics away from the black church and civil rights groups finally into the secular electoral arena. In the quarter century since the civil rights marches of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, "Black politics" had been redefined itself from militant economic boycotts and street demonstrations, from the establishment of racial "Freedom Schools," by and from the Black Power-inspired League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit, to mainstream electoral participation within the existing system. [xi]

But the Jackson presidential campaigns also revealed the deep reservoir of resistance by millions of whites to black leadership at a national level. A state-by- state review of Jackson's 1988 Democratic caucus and primary results, for example, illustrated that in states where the total population of minorities was relatively low, whites were less resistant to voting for a black candidate for president. In Vermont, where African Americans constituted less than one percent of all voters statewide, in 1988 Jackson received 35 percent of the Democratic caucus vote. However, in Ohio, where African Americans made up 14 percent of the state's electorate, 17 percent of white voters backed Jackson. In New Jersey, where blacks accounted for 20 percent of all Democratic voters, only 13 percent of whites voted for Jackson. It became clear to many African Americans that the black electorate was increasingly trapped in a paradox of disempowerment: despite the reality that blacks controlled mayoral offices in major cities and represented at least 20 percent of the national Democratic Party's electorate, they lacked effective allies to dictate new directions for national public policy, or to elect a black president. This stark recognition formed the basis of the April 21-23, 1989, African-American Leadership Summit attracting 1200 delegates in New Orleans, Louisiana. Despite successfully attracting a range of public officials and traditional civil rights bureaucrats- including NAACP director Benjamin Hooks, National Urban League director John Jacobs, Coretta Scott King, and Jackson-most delegates under age forty left dispirited and frustrated by the absence of a coherent plan of action. The refusal by middle class integrationist leaders to dialogue with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan also generated confusion.[xii]

The Jackson presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, and the anti-apartheid mass mobilizations of the 1980s and early 1990s, both had profound effects on African- American and community-based activism throughout the United States. Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition," despite its limited material resources, brought together an unprecedented multiracial block of feminists, trade unionists, lesbian-gay activists, environmentalists, liberal faith-based groups, racialized minorities and many others, around a black-led candidacy. Most of these groups had only tenuous connections with the national Democratic party. They seized upon the Jackson candidacy as a vehicle for expressing their respective protests. This was particularly t victories primarily as advances in anti-racist political organizing. The Rainbow Coalition illustrated the possibility of a multiracial, multiclass coalition, competing on a national level for the presidency. Local Rainbow groups tended to be dominated by volunteers, rather than by paid staff.[xiii]

This was even more the case with the anti-apartheid mobilizations which intensified in the U.S. in 1985. Hundreds of local efforts across the country operated autonomously from each other. They generally targeted U.S.-based institutions - e.g., banks, corporations, universities - that had invested in South Africa. The mobilization' s goal was divestment - the withdrawal of U.S. capital from institutions doing business inside South Africa, contributing to the disruption of the apartheid economy. Despite the Regan administration' s policy of "constructive engagement" with South Africa, which aggressively encouraged U.S. investment and support for the apartheid regime, millions of Americans endorsed the anti-apartheid mobilization. Hundreds of thousands of Americans participated in civil disobedience at South Africa's diplomatic offices and non-violently protested on university campuses, and at institutions that invested in South African related investments. By the late 1980s, under President George H. W. Bush, the U.S. government sharply distanced itself from the South African government, and pressured the regime to enact meaningful reforms including the release of Nelson Mandela in 1991. From the standpoint of social movements, the anti-apartheid mobilization in the United States was not a coherent monolithic social organization, but was instead a tremendously diverse and uneven in its organization. Anti-apartheid groups rarely had coherent staff or well-structured leadership. They largely operated on the basis of volunteer labor. At local levels they tended to target locally-based institutions, businesses or universities that that had some financial connections with South Africa. Such institutions usually were well established in their own geographical region or city, a reality that permitted interested citizens to make the connection between the role of that local institution with the larger international question of human rights and global anti-racism. [xiv]

Community organizers incorporated many valuable lessons from the national anti-apartheid mobilization into their future activities as agents of social change at the neighborhood level. One valuable dimension was that the anti-apartheid mobilization was multi-racial and multi-class in its composition and orientation. In a similar manner, community organizers in predominately black neighborhoods like Harlem or the South Side of Chicago began in the 1990s to move away from narrowly- defined race-based efforts to mobilize blacks on the basis of racial grievances, focusing instead on complex issues of urban inequality that impacted residents regardless of race and ethnicity. It is instructive that Barack Obama's early community organizing experiences while located on the South Side of Chicago were not oriented around issues of race at all. Obama's efforts were to identify issues of urban poverty and the lack of access to opportunity and resources which did affect blacks in a negative way but also Latinos and other racialized minorities.[ xv]

Obama's approach to community organizing and political leadership also drew upon the activist model of the civil rights movement from a quarter-century earlier. Veteran civil rights organizers such as Ella Baker, Medgar Evers and Septima Clark had emphasized the role of "servant leaders" - a leadership that viewed itself as facilitators rather than those who dictated political outcomes.[xvi] The servant leader's task was to encourage intense group discussion and debate fostering a sense of consensus and a unity of action that could be employed to challenge institutions of power. The servant leader did not approach the question of local organization with the objective of maintaining his or her domination over a long period of time. As SNCC activists of the 1960s used to say, "Our job is to work ourselves out of a job."[xvii] This was Obama's philosophy as well, as one can observe from his actual organizing efforts at the neighborhood level in Chicago.

During theses difficult years several thousand grassroots, community-based organizations, based largely but not exclusively on people of African descent, flowered into existence. The largest number of protest groups focused on economic inequality and employment. In Chicago, for example, the Chicago Black United Communities in 1994 picketed construction sites demanding the enforcement of affirmative action provisions, and the hiring of African Americans and Latinos. Similar job pickets promoting minority hiring were led by the new Mount Sinai Baptist Church, in Engelwood, Illinois. In 1994, the mostly black workers of the Union of Needle Trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) attempted to force the large retail corporation, Kmart, to negotiate labor agreements in North Carolina. By 1996 UNITE's anti-Kmart demonstrations had spread to Atlanta, Houston, Memphis, and other Southern cities. UNITE built effective coalitions with black churches and grassroots, local organizations, promoting a political agenda that was both anti-racist and anti-corporate. [xviii]

Hundreds of groups were formed by workers who were not formally members of labor organizations, but who made demands on their employers for economic fairness, fringe benefits and improved working conditions. In North Carolina in the mid-1990s, a series of "housekeepers associations" were initiated. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the local Housekeepers Association forced the school to grant it formal recognition as a union. At East Carolina University, the campus Housekeepers Association led several well-supported protest demonstrations, including one that culminated on the university chancellor's front lawn. In nearly all of these local struggles, African-American churches raised funds, held church suppers and engaged in other supportive activities. What is particularly noteworthy is that this level of support and solidarity was reciprocated. For instance, in Claredon County, South Carolina, when two African-American houses of worship were burned by Ku Klux Klansmen, UNITE donated $7500 to each church to help them to rebuild.[xix]

Hundreds of organizations also developed around the unique concerns of young people. By the mid-1990s, hip-hop culture - including rap music, break dancing, graffiti art - had largely come to define all urban youth culture regardless of race. Many young organizers employed hip-hop culture to attract the enthusiastic participation of young people around social justice concerns. Progressive, anti-racist groups like Public Enemy, KRS-One and his group Boogie Down Productions. MC Lyte, and Salt-N-Pepa preached a message of anti black-on-black violence, black pride, and anti-police brutality. Dozens of hip-hop artists became involved in AIDS/HIV educational awareness campaigns, and contributed to community-building efforts. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons founded the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network in 2001, which was instrumental in reversing one billion dollars in cuts in New York City's 2002 Public School budget. Several years later Simmons' network successfully forced the New York State Legislature to modify the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws, reducing mandatory sentences for thousands of mostly black and brown drug offenders.[xx]

Many of these groups addressed issues of race and criminal justice. The wave of mass incarcerations across the U.S. in the 1990s, with the total prison population growing from one million in 1989 to two million in 2001, generated fierce opposition and protests in both major cities and small towns across the country. In New York City, for example, on 1 May 1994, hundreds of school children and others protested the beating death of Ernest Savon by police on Staten Island. Several years later the mothers of black and Latino police brutality victims started an annual mass protest, "Racial Justice Day," that attracted thousands. With the 4 February 1999 murder of African immigrant Amadou Diallo by the New York Police Department's Street Crimes Unit, and the subsequent legal acquittal of the officers, provoked waves of widespread civil disobedience and nonviolent street demonstrations. Tens of thousands of young people who had been too young to have participated in the 1980s Rainbow Coalition campaigns, or the anti-apartheid mobilizations, learned invaluable lessons in political organizing through these new groups.[xxi]

By the mid and late 1990s a number of community activists who had been involved in grass roots neighborhood activities began to gravitate back toward electoral politics. Like Obama a number of local activists had reluctantly concluded that meaningful change could not be achieved unless there was a substantive transformation within the U.S. political system. More citizens of color and low-income Americans had to become directly involved in the political process in order to achieve long-term effective changes. The difficulty inherent in this position was that the U.S. political system is structurally extremely difficult to change for several basic reasons. First, the political system is not based on a parliamentary democracy model but a winner-take- all electoral system. In individual electoral districts 51 percent of the vote translates into 100 percent of the representation within a particular district. Large minority constituencies, in other words, have no meaningful input or impact on the decision-making and electoral outcomes. Second, money largely dictates political results in U.S. electoral politics. Over 90 percent of all elections are won by the candidate who spends the most money regardless of the candidate's ideology or partisan affiliation. Thirdly, until very recently the majority of white Americans simply would not vote for an African American for public office solely on the basis of race.[xxii]

Fortunately this began to change in the 1990s as an older generation of white Americans who had been educated and influenced under racial segregation began to die out, and a younger generation of whites who did not have the same prejudices began to participate within the political process. By the early 21st century, about 30 percent of all black elected officials throughout the United States were elected from majority white districts.[xxiii] Increasingly it became common to see Latin Americans and Latinos represent majority white districts in state legislatures, and even in Congress. This new level of racial tolerance and openness also created the context for the successful Obama presidential campaign.

Without question in 2007-2008 Obama's lieutenants ran a brilliant electoral campaign, wisely playing down the African-American candidate's ethnic/racial identity, while linking him to the democratic civic values best represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The economic crisis of 2008-2009 created an unprecedented opening promoting an agenda for democratic renewal and the incorporation of marginalized and oppressed groups into mainstreams of U.S. civic life. Obama won the presidency, in part, because thousands of his volunteers and paid staff learned their formative political lessons inside social movements: fighting to elect Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson, opposing South African apartheid, protesting police brutality cases, defending the labor rights of poor black workers, denouncing environmental racism. It was these social movements that gave the Obama campaign its overall, activist quality and spontaneous character. The yet unanswered question is whether the activist, militant base of "Obamaism" can be reconciled with the centrist liberalism which Obama must cleave to, in order to govern. No coherent organized left exists today in U.S. national politics. Therefore, Obama's public policy program by necessity must be to the right of his own core constituency. Whether and how President Obama can balance these divergent forces will be a major test of his leadership.

From the perspective of black social movements, does the triumph of Obama represent a kind of "end" to black politics? A leader of African descent, having achieved state power, has symbolically demonstrated that no fundamental barriers now exist that deny blacks access to political power. The paradox of integration, unfortunately, is that millions of African descendant Americans remain stigmatized and excluded from employment, quality health care, education and home ownership, relative to whites. These dire conditions, combined with the continuing incidents of police brutality and the mass incarceration of young blacks guarantee that spontaneous local protests and grassroots mobilizations of African Americans and Latinos will continue to erupt. As during the Great Society, if Obama's reforms are successfully implemented, new levels of activism and black protest will emerge as a result. A new Black Panthers may soon be on the political horizon.

Notes: Barack Obama and the Contours of African- American Social Protest Movements
[i] W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; reprinted New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, with an introduction by Arnold Rampersad), pp. 22-23.

[ii] Washington's "Atlanta Compromise," called the "Atlanta Exposition Address," was delivered on 18 September 1895, in Atlanta, Georgia, and reprinted in Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, p. 1900). Also see Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); and Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the 20th Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

[iii] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, p. 23.

[iv] There is a massive scholarly literature on Garvey and Garveyism. The preeminent interpreter of Garvey is Robert Hill, whose Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers volumes (Berkeley: University of California Press, Vol. 1 published in 1983 to present) are essential. Also see Randall K. Burkett, Garveyism as a Religious Movement (Metchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978); Theodore Vincent, Black Power and the Garvey Movement (Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971); and Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey and Garvey ism (Kingston, Jamaica: A. Jacques Garvey, 1963).

[v] See Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973); and William Harris, Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925-19037 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).

[vi] See Mark V. Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); and Juan Williams, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (New York: Times Books, 1998).

[vii] See Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harpers, 1958); and Jo Ann Robinson The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, David J. Garrow (ed.) (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987).

[viii] See Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007); David L. Lewis, King: A Critical Biography (New York: Praeger, 1970); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988); and David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: Morrow, 1988).

[ix] Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion, p. 165.

[x] See Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion, pp. 130-131; The National Black Political Agenda (Washington, D.C.: National Black Political Convention, 1972); and Komozi Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

[xi] On Jesse Jackson, see Adolph Reed, The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon and the Crisis if Purpose in African-American Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Sheila D. Collins, The Rainbow Challenge (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986); and Marshall Frady, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (New York: Random House, 1996).

[xii] Manning Marable, The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life (New York: Basic Civitas, 2002), pp. 95-97.

[xiii] See Collins, The Rainbow Challenge.

[xiv] To date, there exists no comprehensive social history of the anti-apartheid movement in the United States, between 1984 and 1994. There are however a number of important works, such as Martin Murray's The Revolution Deferred: The Painful Birth of Post Apartheid South Africa (London: Verso, 1995) that make reference to the role of the U.S. in ending apartheid. The clearest express of U.S. support for the post- apartheid government of Nelson Mandela was President Bill Clinton's address, "America Needs a Strong South Africa," Great Hall of Parliament, The Star, Johannesburg, March 27, 1998.

[xv] See Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Random House, 2006).

[xvi] See Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, eds., The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas, 2005), pp. xx-xxi.

[xvii] See Clayborne Carson, In Struggle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).

[xviii] Marable, The Great Wells of Democracy, pp. 206-208.

[xix] Ibid, pp. 207-208.

[xx] Ibid, pp. 266-269, 257.

[xxi] Ibid, pp. 209-210.

[xxii] Ibid, pp.68-70.

[xxiii] Rachel L. Swarms, "Quiet Political Shifts as More Blacks are Elected," New York Times, October 13, 2008