Brock will join CEO Benjamin Jealous, 37, in leading the organization. Neither of them were around to have experienced the segregated United States that previous leaders fought to overcome, but that isn’t being viewed as a bad thing, as the long-standing group is making an effort to increase youth involvement along with regaining its stature as a relevent organization that extends its services to all minorites.
“There is a misconception that the NAACP is a black organization. It’s not. It’s a multiracial, multiethnic organization,” Brock said Sunday. “When we say people of color, we’re really speaking to the issues of people who have fallen through the cracks and have been left out of prosperous society.”
The group is now most visible in local battles over school inequities, police shootings, racial profiling, home foreclosures and unemployment.
Brock replaces Julian Bond, who was chairman for a decade and grew up in the segregated South, fighting on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Bond, 70, says the NAACP didn’t plan to have two young leaders simultaneously.
“I don’t think we plotted and planned that in 2010, the stars would align this way,” Bond told the Associated Press. He called the timing “fortuitous” as the organization tries to expand and become more relevant.
While many of Brock’s plans focus on getting more young people involved , including a youth summit planned for May and expanding its online presence through social networking sites, she says it’s impossible to forget the NAACP’s history.
Older members “are the beacons in our struggle,” Brock said. “Without them, I wouldn’t have been elected chair, Barack Obama wouldn’t be president, and there wouldn’t be an NAACP.
–gerald radford
