NAACP state chapter hosts town hall meeting

By Charmaine Jackson
Contributing Writer

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Louisiana State Chapter, in conjunction with Justice and Beyond, hosted the first installment of town hall meetings September 6 at Christian Unity Baptist Church.

Members of the community, coalition-partner members, church members and leaders assembled to discuss the struggles and issues adversely affecting African Americans communities in Louisiana.

Pat Bryant, Co-Moderator for Justice and Beyond, stated that the idea of hosting town hall meetings in different cities throughout the state emerged last summer after he and NAACP State President Dr. Ernest L. Johnson challenged the state and the BESE board, along with 300 citizens of New Orleans, to keep O. Perry Walker and L.B. Landry from merging into one school.

“We were fighting the state, the whole state,” Bryan said. “We did well, but we needed help from across the state to get it done.” In the meeting, he stated that it’s necessary to engage other organizations in the town hall meetings that have a “footprint across the state” including the NAACP, AFL-CIO, non-profits, and churches.

“We have to find the time to work together,” Bryant added.

Some of the meeting’s agenda included topics such as the recent tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, jobs and job training, voter registration, community policing, crime, education, health care, the state of Black elected officials, and increasing minimum wage, among others. According to Dr. Johnson, there is relevancy in meeting individuals in the community to continue to speak out against injustices and discrimination, He presented first and reported that a 15-year police veteran in Baton Rouge’s 4th District was investigated for “referring to African Americans as monkeys,” stating, “Ferguson should happen in Baton Rouge,” and “profiling African-American youth wearing pants below the waist ” via text to a colleague. Johnson stated once all the details were confirmed, the NAACP made a “call for resignation” for this police officer, which eventually occurred after the story aired on a local news station. Since the resignation, Johnson is calling for “deep-wide investigation.”

“We want to go deep because we need to look back to see what he’s been doing and wide to see what’s been happening in the whole department,” Johnson said.

Coalition members and the community presented a variety of issues directly affecting citizens of Louisiana, including the fight to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. Alma Ste­wart, president of the La. Center for Health Equity, said they have been fighting this battle for two years and have not been successful. “Last year we got the bill out of the Health and Welfare Com­mittee, but this year, we couldn’t even get a bill out of the committee,” Stewart stated. “If we combine all of our voices and efforts, we can get the job done,” she advised.

Healthcare activist Derrick Morrison referred to the denial of health insurance as “a slow-motion lynching.” “Bobby Jindal’s denying of hundreds of thousands of people in this state simple healthcare is pushing people into the ER and subsequently pushing people to their graves,” he stated. As a means to address this, Morrison, suggested “inviting the governor to have dialogue and that the first thing on the agenda should be Medicaid expansion.”

Education activist Coach Frank addressed the audience to garner support to save New Orleans public schools. Since Katrina, many of the public schools, particularly those named after prominent African Americans, have not been reopened. In addition, Frank said Common Core is raising standards and lowering the bar for our children. “If your child was in the 8th grade last year and took the LEAP test and scored a 41 percent, he or she was considered basic, where in the world is 41 percent passing? So, we just can’t sit back and let the people keep telling us they’re improving schools and they’re not. Our kids are not being properly educated and that’s why they’re dying in the street,” Frank said.

The NAACP town hall meetings will be conducted in other cities, including Baton Rouge, Gramb­ling, Ruston, Monroe, Alexandria, Shreveport, and Lake Charles to get the statewide support it needs to combat the injustices and disparities in communities affecting African Americans.

This article originally published in the September 15, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.