A
writer friend of mine, Nicholas Powers, just sent me the
draft of a very good op-ed he is writing.  In
it, he makes reference to the depression-like conditions
that Black America faces in the current economic crisis.
For some reason, Powers� article triggered the following
thoughts.
The
election of Ben Jealous as president of the NAACP heralded
a potentially significant change in the NAACP. Without question,
it was a generational change, and that alone is of importance.
A generational change, however, is simply not enough, not
in a time of severe economic crisis combined with a white
nationalist assault on people of color.
So,
here are my two suggestions. The first is that the NAACP
convenes a major youth conference, but not simply of NAACP
Youth Councils. The NAACP should consider reaching out to
the forces that were involved, some years ago, in the Hip
Hop Convention and directly engage them. In many respects
this would be building off the work that was started under
former NAACP President Ben Chavis (Muhammad) back in the
1990s, but this must go much further in scope and scale.
The Hip Hop Convention motion of the early 2000s offered
some promise, but more than anything, it seemed to lack
strategic vision. Yet, many of the individuals and groups
involved in it were and are highly committed fighters for
justice. The NAACP could play a leading and convening role
in rebuilding a black youth movement as long as it does
not either bureaucratize this effort, or seek to dominate
it. There is a significant difference between leading and
dominating and the NAACP has a role in leading. But if it
attempts to marginalize youth forces with which it disagrees,
the sort of effort proposed here goes right down the tubes.
The
second idea is that the NAACP starts to organize a black
unemployed and underemployed movement. With black unemployment
at least 15% and underemployment taking us well above 20%,
there needs to be a voice and organization that is fighting
for jobs, economic development and restoring the social
safety net. Certainly, the NAACP needs allies, with the
most logical being organized labor, but I am convinced that
the NAACP cannot afford to wait for organized labor - or
anyone else - to move such an effort. Time to get off the
dime, in other words.
 Today
we need the NAACP to directly address the economic crisis,
not with an occasional demonstration or march, but through
a major mobilization of the people directly affected. That
means creating organizations of the black unemployed. It
means engaging the unemployed so that they no longer feel
marginalized but instead recognize themselves to be a major
force. It means protests in our streets and fighting evictions.
It means registering and mobilizing the unemployed as a
voting bloc. These will constitute key elements of the Black
Freedom movement of the early 21st century and create a
new relevance for the NAACP.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with
the Institute for
Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path
toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines
the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.
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