An R News article has stirred up some controversy in the community regarding
the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
According to the report by Bonyen Lee some Rochester residents are looking to
reactivate the local NAACP chapter. But some say the article was framed inaccurately.
The
story, which coincidentally comes on the heels of a community forum conducted
by Activists Against Racism Movement (AARM) addressing media bias, ran on Saturday,
March 7 and covered an empowerment summit that took place at the Underground Railroad
Café on Main Street earlier that day. The article quotes one of the event
organizers, Marlo Blocker, saying “I was talking to Carolyn and she asked
me to find out who was the president of the NAACP here and I found out there was
none.”
“We take her advice and then we bring it here,” Kaylon
McFadden said. Lee’s article goes on to state “When Blocker and McFadden
searched for information on Rochester’s NAACP chapter, they came up short.
But
Blocker says R News got the story wrong. “The purpose of the event was not
just about the NAACP but the media shaped it to seem like it was.”
Blocker
who was recently released from prison after serving out a 10 year sentence for
drug possession says he was falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. He was
looking for help and was introduced to Carolyn Nah, a civil rights activist and
Bail Bonds person.
“When I got out (of prison) I wanted to bring her
here to speak to the community about empowerment issues,” he said. “My
main concern is for people who have been taken away from the community due to
prison and are now coming back and are having trouble integrating into society
and getting jobs and finding housing.”
Blocker said he contacted Josue
Bogmis, the owner of the Underground Railroad Café, and asked if he could
have his meeting there. He then created flyers and began passing them around the
community.
“The original meeting was not to start a NAACP chapter,”
Bogmis stated. “The media took a few lines that was said and built their
entire story around it.”
“My wife and I are a part of the Rochester,
NY NAACP and I would have told them that I know that there is an NAACP chapter
here. We are members; we know the president and the officers.”
But
Blocker says his attempts to contact the organization were indeed unsuccessful
“I was talking with Mrs. Nah and she asked me to find out who was the chapter
president of the Rochester, NY NAACP. I tried to contact them and I talked to
some people who told me that they had lost their charter,” he stated.
Hazel
Dukes says Blocker didn’t try hard enough. “Nobody has any business
trying to start a chapter in Rochester,” she told us. “There is already
a chapter there.”
Dukes is President of the NAACP New York State Conference
and a member of the NAACP National Board of Directors. “He (Blocker) doesn’t
know what he’s talking about,” she said. “Anyone looking to start
a chapter anywhere in New York State would have to be approved by me and my office.”
“The
way local people perceive the organization is not good,” Blocker insists.
“A lot of people have a lot of negative things to say about the organization.
People don’t feel that they are affective in the community.”
But
Kay Thompson, a board member and long standing member of the local NAACP chapter
disagrees. “There are people in the community who are trying to stir up trouble
for the local NAACP. The allegations that we are not relevant in the community
are simply false.”
Thompson’s assertions may not be unfounded.
Frank Messiah, President of the Buffalo NAACP branch and Western Region Director
says he received a phone call from Rev. Marlow Washington wanting to set up an
NAACP meeting in Rochester on March 3rd. Washington is the Senior Pastor of Baber
AME church on Meigs Street.
“He misled us. He made us think that he
was bringing together the local NAACP branch and then we learned later that he
was not doing that. He was actually trying to start a new branch so I backed out
of the meeting,” Messiah said.
“Marlow Washington did not mislead
anyone,” Washington explains, speaking about himself. “I was concerned
about the young woman who got arrested for sending her children to Greece schools.
At first, that situation appeared to have racism written all over it.”
Washington
says his church fields a lot of calls for the NAACP because they were housed in
his building during a previous administration. “To this day we get a lot
of NAACP calls. I have not been able to locate the organization. I asked Mr. Messiah
what they were doing about the local organization. We were trying to identify
if there was a legal branch or if we needed to create another one,” Washington
said.
Thompson says that locally they handle up to 20 phone calls per week
from people who want them to address their grievances. “Some of the issues
are legitimate and we try to handle them but others we have to refer to other
organizations.” Thompson also adds that, “we work on a lot of cases
but we don’t look for publicity in a lot of the situations we have worked
on.”
Board members admit that the organization has gone through “some
changes” but say much of it was because of past leadership who used the organization
for their personal platform and agendas.
“There are folks out there
who are trying to infiltrate the organization,” explains Thompson. “We
are fighting to keep the organization community based and not run by one person
for their own agenda.”
She extends an invitation for people looking
to do community service to join the organization. “The bottom line is there
are many people in the community who don’t have a voice, who need help and
are disenfranchised. We need people on-board who are about the community; who
want to roll up their sleeves and get to work.”
Blocker says his game
plan moving forward is “just to be active in the community. Now that I know
there’s a chapter here I don’t know if I want to be a part of it,”
he notes. “It seems like the local chapter has left a bad taste in people’s
mouth.”
“We have a new board and a new president. We are working
on being more proactive and not just reactive,” concludes Thompson.
Editor’s
note: The contact info for the Rochester Branch NAACP is as follows:
Greater
Rochester Chapter NAACP #2172
P.O. Box 31456
Rochester, New York 14608
(585)
461-1120
email: info@rocnaacp.com
