Local NAACP reboots, commits to positive change

21st January 2020   ·   0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

The relaunch meeting of the local branch of the NAACP got underway recently at the historic St. James A.M.E. Church on North Roman Street. Holding the meeting in this church, which was founded in 1844, was significant because it linked the civil rights organization to the church’s history of being a gathering place for civil rights leaders like the late Reverend Avery C. Alexander, who came together to strategize and plan protests and other actions in the fight for justice.

A large portrait of Albert Wicker, a church member, educator, businessman and community leader looked on from one corner in the St. James A.M.E. Church’s Recreation Hall. Wicker was a co-founder of the colored men’s YMCA on Dryades Street and the People’s Life Insurance Company. A portrait of Jordan Bankston Noble, another congregant, hung near the door of recreation hall; reminding all that Noble, a drummer and participant in the Battle of New Orleans, and other Black men served this country in that war and every succeeding war with U.S. men on the ground.

It is on this hallowed ground with its long history of civil rights that the NAACP-New Orleans Branch held its first meeting of 2020 on January 8 and will hold subsequent meetings.

The NAACP-New Orleans Branch is also an integral part of New Orleans’ civil rights history. It is the oldest continuously active branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People south of Washington D.C. It was formally chartered on July 15, 1915. One of the branch’s earliest actions was the presentation of a petition containing more than 5,000 signatures to Mayor Martin Behrman protesting the use of Negro women prisoners as street cleaners.

At the meeting, a new slate of officers was sworn in by James Gallman, an NAACP Level II Administrator. The new Board members are President Ronald Coleman; 1st Vice President Bobby Pierce; 2nd Vice President Norma Chapman; Secretary Desmond Ables; Assistant Secretary Linda Paisant; Treasurer Shirley Simon; Assistant Treasurer Diane Crutchfield. There was also a swearing in of the executive committee members at-large: Ezekiel Franklin; Denise Gordon; Florida Hargrove; Leslie Howard; Brenda Jackson; Joseph Landry; Troy Lynn Turner; Howard Nelson; W.C. Johnson; Andy Washington; and Gregory Phillips.

Last year, the New Orleans Branch asked the national NAACP to send someone to help reorganize the branch. Gallman, who had run the NAACP State Conference in South Carolina and served as president of the NAACP in Aiken, South Carolina, arrived in August 2019, with administrative orders to help the guide and put the organization on a solid footing.

It was no surprise that the local Branch needed the national office’s intervention. According to a WDSU news report, a pitched battle over control occurred in 2017, when some members opposed the way then-President Gloria Hall-Johnson, a political consultant, managed the organization’s money and felt her work on political campaigns conflicted with NAACP policy that prohibited endorsements of candidates.

“Vice President Ronald Coleman said a $2,500 donation he saw Hall-Johnson accept was never recorded. Coleman said the chapter is out of money and has been forced to shut off their phone and close their doors,” the report said.

Hall-Johnson fought back against the allegations in a press release. “The accusations made by a small faction of disgruntled members are false.” She said that when she took over there were no funds with which to operate and she called those opposing her leadership “obstructionists.”

When he arrived, Gallman found that “the president had been removed” and that there was “too much divisiveness in the organization.” After a few months, he thought it best to call for a new election. “I’m here to make sure the leadership is doing what it needs to do,” says Gallman. “I’m very pleased with the leadership. I expect we’re going to be back on track in a few months,” he adds.

“I, me, and mine are gone. It’s we, us, and ours now,” Coleman told members at the meeting.

Coleman, who has been a member of the NAACP for more than 20 years, told The Louisiana Weekly that his focus is education and economics.

Regarding education, Coleman says the branch is working with the national NAACP to address the findings by Dr. Joseph Bouie, an educator and state senator, who published a critical analysis of New Orleans’ charter school system called “The Experiment.” “Everybody is not college material,” he offers. Our children need to be taught reading, writing, and civics.”

Coleman sees the schools as a venue for employment of parents, which could also lead to safer environments.

“Some parents work two jobs and can’t monitor their children’s school performances. Let them work at the schools. There are at least 10 cafeteria jobs and there are janitorial jobs that parents can be hired to do,” Coleman said.

Coleman remembers a time when parents worked at the schools and were involved in decision-making, the schools were safer. He remembers attending McDonogh#36, where the late Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor, Lois Dejan, and his mother, Nelda Coleman, were involved.

“Dorothy Mae Taylor worked for education reform and prison reform. My mother taught [the] civil service test for ward clerks in our home,” he says extolling the virtue of the work ethic of women. “I came from dynamic women. Every time I worked with women, things got done,” he laughed.

Coleman also remembered committed men in the community. “Mr. Collins worked and lived on the school grounds. Vandalism was down back then,” says Coleman, making the case for hiring locals and parents for jobs in the schools.

Coleman’s desire for civic involvement started when he was a child growing up in Central City. He was mesmerized by the formation of the Central City Economic Opportunity Corporation (CCEOC), which was incorporated in December 1969. The corporation was an outgrowth of the 1965 Central City Neighborhood Center, one of six neighborhood centers of Total Community Action, Inc., in response to the federal War on Poverty.

“We had a food stamp office, a health center, library, and credit union. I served on the youth board of Central City,” Coleman explained. At 12, Coleman addressed the City Council on the benefits of the model city project. He has been active in political and civic affairs since then.

“We don’t have a crime problem in the city, we have an economic problem. The city is willing to participate in the organization’s agenda to boost entrepreneurship by helping to create economic opportunities for Blacks to do business with the city,” Coleman explains. The branch is also reaching out to state and federal officials for information on procurement opportunities.

On Coleman’s wish list is the establishment of a farmers market and flea market on Burdette and Earhart streets. It’s a project he’s working on with Phillips Memorial Methodist Church. We’ll educate ourselves and children in sustainable farming to feed ourselves. Southern University and the LSU Agriculture Center are training people for free in hydroponics. It’s a lucrative process. “The focus is on bringing economics to the community, entrepreneurship, jobs, and training.

“Economics and education, that’s going to be our fight and we’ll get it done,” says Coleman.

The NAACP-New Orleans Branch is seeking members. Those interested are invited to the NAACP meetings every second Tuesday at Historic St. James AME Church at 222 North Roman Street (Enter Rec. Hall around the corner in the parking lot on Bienville Street).

This article originally published in the January 20, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.