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To Board member Adora Obi Nweze, Vice Chair Roslyn Brock, other members of the Board of Directors, SCF Trustees, CEO Kweisi Mfume, NAACP staff, NAACP members, friends and guests - welcome to our 94th national convention. Under President Nweze's leadership, the Florida NAACP State Conference has risen to great heights. Building on an already solid foundation laid by Leon Russell, in the last two years they have chartered four prison chapters, filed lawsuits against vouchers and the state's failed One Florida plan, an employment discrimination complaint against the corrections department, and against Florida's disenfranchisement of black voters in 2000.Last week, she opened the Florida NAACP's first state office, in Orlando.
The Florida State Conference and all of you are part of the largest army of grassroots soldiers for civil rights in the country! And, in poll after poll, our constituents and the public say we are the most respected and most effective of all civil rights organizations.
Our membership is growing, our leadership is strong - and it’s a good thing, because we have much to do. It is of course a pleasure to be in Florida - the state whose motto is, "It ain’t over until your brother counts the votes!" You know last year we gathered in Texas. Now maybe because both Florida and Texas are hot, both are home to a particular species called the "bush". These "bushes" are prickly and grow lopsided - they lean sharply to the right. They are apparently an elusive, dwarf variety because we in the NAACP have not seen these "bushes" last year or this. But we intend to uproot the bigger "bush" in 2004. And what better place to start than right here in Florida!
The theme of this year's convention is "Having Our Say."
The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. … I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard!" We will have our say, and we will be heard! We meet during a year studded with important anniversaries - celebrated events in the centuries-long struggle for human rights. One hundred and forty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in states in armed rebellion against the United States. One hundred years ago, W. E. B. DuBois published The Souls of Black Folk, famously predicting that the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line. Fifty-five years ago President Harry Truman desegregated the American military. Forty years ago last month, NAACP field Secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. And forty years ago next month, Martin Luther King, Jr., fresh from the battlefields of Birmingham, told the nation of his dream at the March on Washington.
And we meet in a place where NAACP history dates to 1915, when the first Florida branch was started in Key West. In 1916 W. E. B. DuBois came to Florida to energize our members, as we gather this week to be energized again. In 1917, James Weldon Johnson, himself a native Floridian, organized Branches in Florida in his capacity as our first National Field Secretary. By 1926, perhaps decimated by World War I, not a single dues-paying Florida Branch existed, but the NAACP stayed in the fight. It took Chambers v. Florida to the United States Supreme Court, saving an innocent black man from the electric chair. In 1940, NAACP attorneys filed suit to equalize teachers' salaries, the first such suit in the South. When the Florida State Conference was formed in 1941, Harry T. Moore became its President and later its full-time Executive Secretary, along with officers E. D. Davis, W. J. H. Black, Frank Burts, Emma Pickett, Mamie Mike, and K. S. Johnson. On Christmas night 1951, Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriet, joined the ranks of civil rights martyrs when the KKK bombed their home, killing them both. Moore's successor was Robert W. Saunders, Sr., who died this year. When Bob Saunders replaced Harry T. Moore, he stepped into big footprints, but he more than filled them. He was brave and daring and innovative and hard working - and we all miss him terribly.
After Brown v. Board, Thurgood Marshall targeted Florida, saying of the state, "We found not one instance on the part of the political leadership … to even consider the possibility of desegregating. The NAACP sued the school system here in Dade County. Florida fought back. They formed an infamous body, known as the Johns Committee, to investigate the NAACP, and it "embarked on a witch-hunt that would last for years." But the NAACP helped to force desegregation in the public schools of 20 Florida counties and attacked segregation statewide - at service stations, cafeterias, in the Florida National Guard, and the University of Florida. The list goes on and on. As Bob Saunders wrote of the NAACP's role in Florida during the 1960s, "We welcomed others to the fight. … Still, we were here before the others came, and we were there after some of them left." And we're still here! The Florida NAACP story is full of champions - Father Theodore Gibson, Reverends A. Leon Lowery and C. K. Steele, Rutledge Pearson, Charles Cherry, Flossie Currington, Ellen P. Greene - the list is long.
Today, Florida is the fourth largest state in the union, with a population becoming more diverse every day. Whites account for 65 percent, blacks 15, Asians 2, and Hispanics 17 percent. We know that nationally, as in Florida, Hispanics are now the largest minority, and we are reminded of our need to make common cause with all who share our condition and concerns. Although Latinos are less cohesive as a group than blacks - identifying themselves by place of origin rather than race and collectively lacking a shared history in the United States - blacks and Latinos, as well as other minorities, will move forward fastest if we move forward together. We've said it again and again - in the NAACP, we believe colored people come in all colors. Anyone who shares our condition, values and concerns is more than welcome. Although Florida boasts a diverse population and has witnessed a huge growth in its minority student population, its schools - in keeping with national trends - are becoming more segregated. We know that when properly enforced, Brown v. Board of Education does work - because we've seen it work, here in Florida and elsewhere throughout the South. In 1980, the average black student in Florida, as a result of enforcement efforts under Brown, was attending a school that was half white. By 2000, however, that student's school was only about one-third white. We know that "segregation by race is strongly associated with concentrated poverty and many forms of social inequality". We've tried segregation, and it doesn't work.
To reiterate: The main post is the second half of the speech. The quoted text in this comment section is the first half of the speech. Because of the length of the speech, I decided to start the post at the "exciting parts".
To get to the best parts, use the find key on your browser and search on the following words: "color" "swastika" "race card" "Ginsberg" "peonage" "privileged" "marches"
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These percent plans, which guarantee admission to state universities for a fixed percentage of the state's top high school graduates, suffer from numerous deficiencies, not the least of which is that they depend for any success on continued racial segregation in high schools.
Hm. Let's look at that. Scenario 1: Schools are completely segregated. Then 20% of all white kids and 20% of all black kids will be guaranteed admission. That's simple math, and Julian's got that right. This plan masks any difference between (for example) a low performing all-minority school vs. a high-performing majority school. Even though the kids from the minority school have lower scores and grades, the plan ensures that they'll still get guaranteed slots in t Floriday universities proportionate to their population.
Scenario 2: all schools are completely integrated. This would mean that all races would be equally represented in high-performing and low-performing schools. Now, each school would still get it's 20% into the Florida universitites. So the only way that the races would be disproportionately represented in Florida Universities under this scenario would be if white kids were disproportionately represnted in the upper 20% of these schools. But why would that be? After all, all the kids in the high-performing school would have the same academic environment in the school, the same available resources, etc. Why would those kids lose their opportunities? Why would "they depend for any success on continued racial segregation in high schools."?
And percent plans do nothing to increase minority enrollments in private colleges
Nor should they. Private colleges are private.
or graduate and professional schools.
After 4 or 5 years in college, you've had a chance to show what you can do. If a private school wants to give preferences, fine. A public graduate/professional school should be able to set race as a secondary consideration compared to actual accomplishment when educating someone who's going to be operating on me in a few years.
Translation: the asians will take the top slots in any school that is not 100% black
Yep-- thanks to vote fraud all over the place.
Not half as stupid as that lot of NCAAP'ers who're eating-up your words.