NAACP Enters Second Century In Age Of Obama

By Emily Vaughan  

Benjamin Todd Jealous

NAACP president

NJ: Can you give us a progress report of your experience so far at the NAACP and how you envision its role in the age of Obama?

Jealous: Our membership has been growing consistently this year despite a bad economy, and we credit that primarily to the fact that Obama's election for a lot of people, reintroduced them to what we do. When a black man becomes president, people ask, well how did that happen? We work long-range strategy. We've been working on making it possible for people to win purely based on merit and politics in this country not based on hard-on racial privilege or gender privilege....

We're also on the verge of our second century, so we're doing a lot of taking stock of where we are, where the movement is and where we should be headed. The NAACP has truly always been a human rights organization.... Our aspirations have always been broader than just what the law or the Constitution is interpreted to guarantee at that time.

With that said, we inherited a great set of contracts that have been signed as result of a successful, private human rights program. The movement against slavery: those contracts were the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. We spent the better part of the last century seeking to enforce those. At this point, we have in many ways pushed those to their limits in the courts. So we find ourselves shifting back to a set of activities that are really designed to extend and amend the existing social contracts. In other words, we're turning back into an explicitly human rights movement again.

NJ: You've been quoted saying that Americans are dealing with "racial exhaustion." What can you tell us about that given the current discussion about race and Obama?

Jealous: This country, we have a choice to make right now. January 20 gave us a vision of how we can make real progress for real people. Most of the things that are most important to most people, black, brown, white, whatever, are real basic kitchen table issues. Racism, gender discrimination -- they're important, but even among people whoa re victims of them, they don't usually rank at the top. Maybe the top 10, not the top 3. So focusing on those: jobs, health care, schools, which are fundamentally about the structure of our society, gives us opportunity to move forward. And the possibility of doing that without getting stuck in century-old paradigms is exciting.

But... we have a group folks asserting themselves extensively about one thing. It's reasonable to believe when Joe Wilson belongs to the Sons of the Confederacy, which is a recognized hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, that they may have a different agenda or different things pushing them.

NJ: On the one hand you're trying to reach out to other groups to define issues in less racial terms, but on the other hand you've got to address what's going on in the country now. Is there concern that by doing one you're reducing your ability to do the other?

Jealous: It's very hard.... We know that we're at a point right now where we have the largest number of people who have, sort of, unattached racial attitudes. The hardcore racists are at their smallest, they've just died off, generationally... People that really believe in a multiracial, merit-based society are at their largest point, you can measure that a whole bunch of ways, from friendships to marriage and everything else. But then also there are people who could go either way.

NJ: Where is the NAACP getting its money: from new people or re-energizing traditional bases of support?

Jealous: The short answer is from the foundation community.... That and increased support from churches and from unions, also increased support from wealthy Americans. We had a major donor program that was very successful until about the mid-'90s and for various reasons hadn't been put back in place. It took a long time going around creating a base of folks who each year give us $25,000 to $50,000. It's basically the successful model of Human Rights Watch and the ACLU.

NJ: You've said you're focused on health care. How are you going to pressure the Blue Dog Democrats to remember your constituents in their districts and how they should help them out?

Jealous: We just launched Campaign 880. Eight-eighty is short for the 880,000 black Americans who would be alive in this decade if we had real health care reform at the beginning of the last. What it comes down to is about 10 Blue Dog congressional districts, each of which have more than 20 percent black voting strength. And we're making it very clear that we need to see a significant reduction in the number of uninsured families.

Jealous: The place to start is just basic fairness. So the crack/powder conversation that we're having right now is an important stating point. Black people are 15 percent of the population, but... heading for 90% of the people busted for using crack. Now the other way white people are 65% of the crack users in this country and well less than 10% of the people busted for using. So it's pretty clear on crack, we have two different policies.... The solution is to start treating black people the way we treat white people. Make rehab more available and recognize the problem for what it is.

NJ: Immigration reform is extremely unpopular in the black community. If the issue comes up next year, would the NAACP work against a bill that would extend amnesty to people here?

Jealous: We're in full support of comprehensive immigration reform. Let me be very clear: We really need a broader conversation about comprehensive labor reform in this country. So the conversation about the Employee Free Choice Act, for example, needs to be part of the same conversation as the conversation about how working families are treated in this country regardless of status.

NJ: When Obama made his Jeremiah Wright speech during the campaign, he effectively de-racialized the talk about him for awhile, but that rhetoric has come back recently. Why? Is it a function of the intense health care debate?

Jealous: Part of it is that we need to have a structured national conversation about race. We haven't had it. So we end up in this constant reactive mode.... Glenn Beck pulls out his conspiracy theories chalkboard and says that Van Jones is something that he's not. And that unfortunately is the quality of our national conversation on race. We need to really deal with the issue. In the meantime, the group that has decided that they have the least to lose in the conversation are the folks who feel like they're least prepared for the transition that we're going though. The challenge for the rest of us is to figure out how to get in front of them and how to deal with the issue proactively and put the wheels back on the bus of civility.

NJ: ACORN's opponents used technology to rather swiftly get it de-funded, to take on its reputation, to make it vulnerable. Are you concerned about similar tactics being used against the NAACP?

Jealous: We're protected against a lot of the vulnerabilities that ACORN has because we're a volunteer-based movement. We don't' pay people for voter registration drives, for instance. We don't do that sort of housing counseling. We don't take that much money from the federal government. This year we'll take $250,000 from the federal government for AIDS education, not tens of millions. We're in the same arena but a different section, so we're not so worried. But we are people who pride ourselves on having invented a lot of the tactics that the opposition is using right now. We are a bit frustrated that they're using it to better effect in many cases.