Wednesday, June 12, 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi.  Commemorative events have already started.  The NAACP held a national board meeting in Jackson; replete with visits to historic sites. NAACP local chapters are holding events all over the county. Medgar’s widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, along with former President Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and 300 others paid their respects at a high profile visit to Mr. Evers’ grave in Arlington National Cemetery.  And his alma mater, Alcorn State University, is dedicating a memorial to the civil rights freedom fighter, as well as having a “Torch of Justice” awards luncheon.

These events occur at a difficult juncture for civil rights advocates. More than 30 states have passed Voter I.D. laws of varying types.  While the text of such laws is aimed at curtailing voter fraud, the subtext of such laws is aimed at restricting votes by people of color.  The Supreme Court will soon pass judgment on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Law, the most important enforcement provision in the law. Many observers expect the Court to vacate that section. Daily discrimination continues against people of color in employment, housing, healthcare, and every other facet of life, even while such facts are either ignored or glossed over.  From Tea Partiers we get the contention that it is white people who are the victims of discrimination.

Occupy Kansas City, the local manifestation of the Occupy Wall Street movement, marched under a multi-lingual banner "We Are One," last October, starting in a downtown park and ending up in some of the most immigrant-diverse neighborhoods on Kansas City's northeast side. They sponsored a day of learning, at their campground, covering topics from trade union rights, coalition building to the nuts and bolts of organizing. This reporter was glad to teach a session on the Tea Parties and racism that day. They have marched on multiple occasions against economic injustice and most recently rallied in defense of the voting rights endangered by state voter ID laws. And like any other new movement that is still building itself, they have faced some ups and downs.

Two weeks ago, a new challenge leapt up on the Occupy Kansas City periphery in the person of a website that called itself "OccupyKCJournal." This "journal" ran a blog forum, and produced a couple of propaganda broadsheets which included racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic images. One pictured a stereotypical Jewish person with the words: "So what have those 'Great Humanitarians," the Jews been pouring into the well of white culture over the past half century." The Journal crew, obviously aching to get noticed, mailed and emailed their propaganda to city council members and other personages in Kansas City.

They did get noticed.

Occupy Kansas City activists Mike Enriquez and Jeremy Al-Haj joined NAACP branch president Anita Russell and Jewish Community Relations Bureau executive director Marvin Szneler and this reporter from IREHR for a press conference on Tuesday, March 13. Occupier Mike Enriquez said, "Whether we will be open to racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry and hatred; the answer is emphatically no." Jeremy Al-Haj echoed the sentiment, "the 99% includes people of all colors, all faiths, and all sexualities and gender identities." He added, "We will not allow for our movement to be co-opted by racists, anti-Semites and homophobes."

Both Marvin Szneler and Anita Russell added their own point of view, and I pointed out that such statements as the OccupyKCJournal published are usually reserved to neo-Nazis and assorted white nationalists, not to the Occupy Kansas City movement.

After the press conference, as if to prove that they were bigots, one "Journal" supporter, Jeffrey Heavin, added to an internet discussion of the day's events by insulting Anita Russell and the NAACP and asking, "Did Marvin Szneler shed any light as to why the number of 'holocaust survivors' increases each year." Again, I would add that this is the stuff of hard-core bigots and Holocaust deniers.

After the dust settled, the Occupy Kansas City activists, by common agreement, believed their movement was stronger by separating themselves from the bigots at the so-called Journal. One and all thanked this writer and IREHR for its role in helping to pull together a response to the problem at hand. And Occupy Kansas City is ready to face the next challenge.

Excerpts from presentation by Leonard Zeskind to the "Annual Civil Rights Town Hall Meeting" held by the Kansas City, Missouri branch of the NAACP on January 28, 2012.

This section of the Special Report compiles opinion polling data, documents significant examples of racist vitriol on the part of Tea Party leaders, shows incidents where well-known anti-Semites and white supremacists have been given a platform by Tea Partiers, and analyzes the attempt by white nationalist organizations to find new recruits in Tea Party ranks.

Almost 100 Tea Partiers and anti-immigrant activists mounted a small and sometime languid protest of the NAACP, at the venerable civil rights organization’s 102nd national convention in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 24.  

Meeting for a week in Los Angeles for its 102nd national convention, the NAACP marched in solidarity with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, heard rousing oratory from Chairman Roslyn Brock and President Benjamin Todd Jealous, took a history lesson on the meaning of the current battle from North Carolina State President Rev. William Barber, and met in dozens of workshops that covered topics from "Why we must overcome homophobia" to "Environmental and climate justice" to "Reviving the prophetic relationship with communities of faith."

"The state of the NAACP is strong," Jealous told a plenary session.  He cited three years in a row of growing membership numbers, an end to fiscal crisis at the national headquarters, and an on-line activist base--"starting primarily with young people"--of over 510,000.  Close to 2,500 voting delegates and alternates registered for and attended the convention, but approximately 10,000 walked through the doors at one time or another, according to an NAACP spokesperson. Many went to the NAACP's commerce expo, and the annual Freedom Fund dinner was packed wall to wall.  This writer sat at Table 127, and the numbers went up from there.

Branch, College & Youth Councils Officers Luncheon

July 11, 2010

I am going to talk briefly about the Tea Party phenomenon and why it is important for all of our branches to educate themselves and their communities about this dire threat.