NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks speaks with the media after a speech by Vice President Joe Biden at the NAACP annual convention Wednesday, July 23, 2014, in Las Vegas.(Photo: John Locher, AP)
With the country at a seeming crossroads when it comes to race relations, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization is gathering for its annual meeting in Philadelphia.
The 106th annual convention of the NAACP is taking place in Philadelphia starting on Saturday as the country reflects on Friday's removal of the Confederate battle flag from its longtime and controversial perch on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse. It also comes with the debate over relations between police and black Americans perhaps at its most contentious, after a string of deaths or injuries of unarmed black men at the hands of police or civilians in recent years.
The police issue will run a thread throughout the convention, which will include a Sunday morning talk by Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who filed charges against six police officers in the April death of a black man who'd been held in police custody.
Later in the week, President Obama addresses the group Tuesday afternoon U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will speak Wednesday night. Organization President Cornell William Brooks speaks as an introduction to a panel exploring how prosecutors are addressing justice inequities on Monday morning.
WMAZ
NAACP selects Cornell William Brooks as president, CEO
Brooks said the meeting would make history.
"Why? All across this country, we've seen over the course of the last year tragedy after tragedy, instances of police brutality, instances of police misconduct, the hometown of the NAACP in Baltimore, Maryland, go up in flames," he said during a Friday press conference.
Said NAACP Chair Roslyn Brock, "We are here to stop the use of excessive force by police."
The Baltimore-based organization anticipates 8,000 branch leaders, members and representatives of the public to attend the meeting that extends into next week at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The group will set its agenda for the 2016 White House campaign at the meeting, too, according to PhillyVoice.com.
"We're really at a crossroads in America," Rodney Muhammad, president of the Philadelphia NAACP, told PhillyVoice.com. "We're at a time when we don't want to see the country degenerate into a larger pool of violence that already takes place here. This is a time for pause in America, a time to put the mirror up and for this nation to take a look at itself."
The organization says the meeting will provide temporary jobs that will have an economic impact of $10.5 million on Philadelphia.
Powered By WizardRSS.com |
Full Text RSS Feed
