Posted on 09/20/2013 1:53:01 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Members of the Michigan State Conference NAACP are gathering in Kalamazoo this weekend to consider how to address the "mass movement to subvert democracy" in the United States, convention speakers said.
"The will of voters is being completely overtaken" on several fronts, including efforts to overturn the federal Affordable Care Act, restrict voter registration and access to the polls, and, in Michigan, the use of emergency managers in financially stressed cities, said Derrick Miller, president of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, and the Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III, national NAACP vice president of stakeholder relations.
Rivers and Miller held a press conference Friday at Kalamazoo's Radisson Center Hotel & Suites, site of the Michigan NAACP's three-day annual convention, which starts Friday night.
Also at the press conference were Michigan NAACP President Yvonne White and Charles Warfield, president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Rivers, a native of South Carolina, referred to the current political climate as the "third Reconstruction" in the nation's historic battle over civil rights. The first Reconstruction occurred with the Civil War and the end of slavery; the second Reconstruction was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s. Now once again, Rivers said, American society is facing a "moral dilemma" on whether all its citizens are offered equal rights, protections and opportunities.
"Folks will say 'I'm Christian' or 'I'm Christian right,' but the Christian right is so often wrong" and acts against Christian principles, Rivers said. "You've got moral dilemmas in the black church, too.
"It's horrendous when Christians attack, in public, the right to vote," Rivers said. "It's mind-boggling ... that faith communities are debating same-sex marriage and saying nothing about gun violence in America."
One "evil" singled out by Rivers was efforts to thwart Obamacare.
"In South Carolina, you've got people trying to terrorize black folks from accepting health care under the Affordable Care Act," Rivers said.
He drew an analogy between the fight over the ACA and school desegregation. In both cases, he said, a Supreme Court decision declared the law of the land, only to face fierce resistance, especially in the South.
Rivers referred to Republicans' current threat to shut down government in an effort to stop implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
"You've got people encouraging government to shut down and defund something that is legal," he said.
Johnson said the NAACP "has always been the conscience of the country," and a key part of that is emphasizing the need to put "people before profits" in determining social policy.
"If people are not in the equation, the decision should be made easy," Miller said. Miller and Rivers both have ties to Michigan. Miller is a Detroit native, and Rivers lived in Detroit during the 1960s and '70s, and has a grandson who is a former student at Kalamazoo Public Schools.
"I'll always be indebted to Kalamazoo" because of the education his grandson achieved in KPS, Rivers added, saying the young man just finished his first year of college with a 3.9 grade-point average.
He added that Michigan has played a critical role in the Civil Rights Movement.
"Michigan has been on the forefront of so many battles," Rivers said. "Michigan never will get full credit for developing the black middle-class, with the Big Three and the labor movement.
"Detroit is synonymous with the struggle," he added. "The first time that Martin Luther King ever said, 'I had a dream' was in Detroit."
The NAACP conference officially kicks off tonight with a soul food dinner and public mass meeting at Galilee Baptist Church, 1216 N. Westnedge Ave. The public meeting is at 7 p.m.
Other public events include a Walk a Mile in My Shoes fitness talk at 6:30 a.m. Saturday from the Radisson to Martin Luther King Park, and a 8 a.m. Sunday worship service at the Radisson.
White said about 175 delegates are expected to participate in the convention.
Who’s chnage election laws?
What does the naalcp not get that about the Americans not wanting obamaCare.
NAACP = Like Obama the vast majority of Americans of all colors have tuned you Black Racists out!!! End of Story!!!
So....the Congress wasn’t elected by voters?
And by the way: what was the vote tally on Obamacare?
Or was it “deemed passed”?
Dred Scott was “the law of the land” too.
Uh, since a majority of US peeps abhor Zer0Care, it needs to go away immediately.
Good thing we don’t have a democracy.
These days, anything that flies in the face of Black wishes, hopes, plans, and intentions is ‘a subversion of democracy.’
Black bullsh*t at its most obvious and unvarnished.
They can't switch tunes on us mid-dance!
The NAACP and their champion president are subverting republicanism.
NAACP leaders: Efforts to block Obamacare and change election laws a ‘subversion of democracy’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Go ahead and say it. “If you oppose Obama - youse a raciss.”
Is he talking about the same “voters” who kicked Pelosi out of the speakership?
oh you bet, the NAACP is calling what the jackass currently in the WH is doing democracy?? You have to give these folks some credit for their unwavering stupidity and loyalty to the obozo. I believe if the obozo told his minions to jump off of cliff because their reward of social justice is waiting at the bottom, without hesitation, they'd jump.
Does that count if I’m black?
Or severely brown?
I got another analogy for you, Rivers.
Slavery was once the law of the land.
The Republican Party got rid of that bitch, too.
A Democracy is Mob Rule.
Hey “Colored People”, nobody cares what you think or say anymore......cry me a river.
The morons in this exclusive ‘woe is me’ club are making me sick.
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