It’s not just Lincoln’s birthday today.  It’s also the 100th anniversary of the NAACP and folk might fool you into thinking that’s not important because the occupants of the White House are black, but don’t be hoodwinked y’all.  Sure the old guard may need to loosen it’s reign over the organization and continue to embrace the youngsters, but that doesn’t mean the group is no longer relevant. As long as there are Oscar Grants, Billey Joe Johnsons, unequal education, sky-rocketing AIDS rates, and a plethora of other problems, the NAACP will be needed.

 

 

 

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the relevancy of the NAACP in an Obama era.  Benjamin Jealous, the current and youngest NAACP President was spot on with this:

For many black people in this country, you feel the culmination of a baton of dreams that has been handed in the seemingly endless track race, and we have reached another big milestone in the race. But then you go home for the holidays and you gather with relatives at Christmas and cousins are locked up; and the men can’t find a job; and the women are being paid too little at their jobs; and the kids’ schools suck; and you realize the race is really just beginning [...]

 

Our generation was routinely told that ‘the battle has been won. We ended slavery, then there was Jim Crow and we ended that too, so go out, reap the rewards and get rich,’ “We came of age just in time to find that our generation had become the most incarcerated people on the planet.

 

There’s an excellent quote in the article about how we can’t afford to fall asleep in the promise land.  I love that because we sure as hell need to wake up.

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Benjamin Jealous, Billey Joe Johnson, NAACP, Oscar Grant