The NAACP took a bold and courageous step last week, going public in its denunciation of President Donald Trump’s open retreat from social justice, Civil Rights and economic empowerment and advance for all citizens. The organization announced that it would not be issuing an invitation to the President to attend and speak before its national convention being held in Charlotte next month. It’s the first time in the NAACP’s 116 year history that a sitting president has not been invited. NAACP President Derrick Johnson announced the move at an afternoon press conference, accusing Trump of working against its mission. “This has nothing to do with political party,” Johnson said in a statement. “Our mission is to advance civil rights, and the current president has made clear that his mission is to eliminate civil rights.”
This administration has not been the least bit subtle in its multiple efforts to at best minimize, and at worse totally stop this nation’s slow progress towards full equality and opportunity for people of color, and in turn the NAACP has been forced to take the fight to the courts. Among the many lawsuits they’ve filed against his administration, in April they sued to stop the Department of Education from withholding federal money for schools that did not end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, arguing the department was prohibiting legal efforts to provide equal opportunity to Black students. Despite what right-wing media and Trump apologists want to claim, the NAACP is not and never has been a political group other than seeking policies that benefit the advancement of Civil Rights. “There is a rich history of both Republicans and Democrats attending our convention,” the group said in a statement.
The organization also noted that while it has differed with the viewpoints, strategies and tactics of other sitting presidents, they’ve never before not invited them to the national convention. This tradition began with Democrat Harry Truman. He became the first president to attend the NAACP’s national convention in 1947. A prime example of the organization’s bipartisan approach came when Republican President George W. Bush addressed the group’s convention in July 2006. He was invited despite the NAACP severely criticizing for several months his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which had a disproportionate impact on Black residents in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. The same thing is true with Ronald Reagan, whose first presidential campaign in 1980 saw him repeatedly utilizing heavily coded and racially suggestive campaign language in constantly berating “welfare queens.” Many, including the NAACP, saw that as a ugly attack on Black women. But the NAACP still invited him to the 1981 convention in Denver, and there Reagan did something that to his credit surprised many across the political spectrum. During his speech, he openly attacked white supremacist hate groups and vowed his administration would investigate and prosecute “those who, by violence or intimidation, would attempt to deny Americans their constitutional rights.”
By comparison, there are precious few positive actions that can be cited in terms of the Trump administration and Civil Rights. He’s fired prominent Black officials, most notably General Charles Q. Brown Jr., was fired by President T the first Black Chief of Staff for any military branch and the second Black general to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, following Colin Powell, and Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress. Despite a half-hearted public endorsement of HBCUs, there’s been nothing done budgetary wise to address the inequality in funding that numerous HBCUs, among them Tennessee State, have suffered over decades. He has turned the Justice Department and Civil Rights enforcement upside down, using them as a vehicle to either go after organizations and entities he feels have wronged him, or to act as though white Americans are being discriminated against in positions of power and authority despite statistics that prove the total opposite.
For all these and many other reasons, the NAACP took a stand in good conscience that a lot of other organizations are afraid of doing, for fear of reprisals. Given his penchant for vengeance and continual abuses of power, the CBC should be ready to take action should he try to have their tax-exempt status revoked or try some other punitive actions. In the meantime, the Tennessee Tribune applauds the NAACP for its stance and decision.
