Brothers and Sisters, in the last article I sent the wrong venue site to the Daily Home. It was printed through no fault of theirs.
The Talladega County NAACP will hold its Annual Freedom Fund Banquet on Oct. 8 at 5 p.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church Family Life Center. The guest speaker will be our very own Judge Ricky McKinney, pastor of Weeping Mary Missionary Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa. This banquet not only enables us to better serve our community but also helps us to reach out to our young people in this county.
We invite all 11 high schools to participate in our scholarship/book award program. While much of NAACP history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets, and magazines, the true movement lies in the faces — the diverse multiracial army of ordinary women and men from every walk of life, race, and class — united to awaken the consciousness of a people and a nation. The NAACP will remain vigilant in its mission until the promise of America is made real for all Americans. The NAACP continues to fight for the rights of all individuals. Our theme this year is VOTING POWER — MAKING GOOD TROUBLE.
Voting is the price of freedom. If you don't vote, you don't have the desire to stay free. Freedom is the power to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; being privileged, not being restricted or enslaved, being able to move freely and not being affected by a particular or undesirable thing; the quality of self-determination. Freedom is the unrestricted use of something. Every voting season you have the freedom to vote — the right to use your power of the vote to elect like-minded candidates.
Not voting signals the fact that you don't care about your freedom. Yet numbers in the black community say you don't want freedom. Not voting in your community says that you don't have the desire to stay free, says you don't care about your freedom.
In most of the black communities in the last election cycles in Alabama, the numbers show that you don't want to stay free, that you chose to stay enslaved, bound, and not using the tools given to you by the Constitution of the state of Alabama nor the 1901 Constitution of the great state of Alabama.
Many people don't understand the meaning of the NAACP and that it's for all people, not just people of color. The NAACP has persevered for 113 years by banding together, putting one foot in front of the other, getting up after each knockdown, and standing up to unpopularity. The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and the resting place of President Abraham Lincoln.
Appalled at the violence that was committed against Blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington, and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African-Americans (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. The NAACP’s principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of minority group citizens of the United States and eliminate race prejudice.
The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers to racial discrimination through democratic processes. The NAACP is focused on disparities in economics, health care, education, voter empowerment, and the criminal justice system while also continuing its role as a legal advocate for civil rights issues. Yet the real story of the nation’s most significant civil rights organization lies in the hearts and minds of the people who would not stand idly by while the rights of America’s darker citizens were denied.
From bold investigations of mob brutality, protests of mass murders, segregation, and discrimination, to testimony before congressional committees on the vicious tactics used to bar African Americans from the ballot box, it was the talent and tenacity of NAACP members that saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society.
Please join the struggle. Become a member now. Call Josephine Mckinney at 256-315-3314 for more information.
Tickets are $50 a ticket and $400 for a table of eight. You also can purchase ads for the souvenir booklet. For more information, call Peggy Garner at 256-362-6372, Virginia Bell at 256-375-0218, LaTanga Morris at 256-223-1207 or Morris at 256-493-0525. Join the Talladega County NAACP.
