8884: Drop Prop 8.

From USA TODAY…

Why Prop 8 must fall: Civil rights

By Julian Bond

This Sunday we celebrate the 44th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that struck down anti-miscegenation laws that forbade African Americans and whites from marrying.

In the Loving case, a unanimous court held that marriage is “one of the basic civil rights of man…fundamental to our very existence and survival.” The court also held that “under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”

The Loving decision, which was a watershed moment in the civil rights movement, has deep implications today for gay and lesbian couples who want that essential freedom: to marry.

My wife, Pamela Horowitz, and I were married in Virginia in 1990. Prior to the Loving decision, we could have been sentenced to time in prison for that loving act — committed in the state that likes to claim it “is for lovers.”

Of course, prior to the Loving decision, the parents of the current president of the United States would have been committing a felony had they lived in Virginia.

Today, we look at anti-miscegenation laws as a stain on our history and an affront to our beliefs as Americans. In this country, we do not create separate classes of Americans based upon inherent characteristics. Sexual orientation is immutable and unchangeable. It is as much a part of our DNA as our race.

Because I have spent my life fighting to make ours a more just society for all Americans, I’m a supporter of marriage equality. I believe this to be a fight for civil rights.

Fourteen times, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that marriage is a fundamental human right. In Loving v. Virginia, the justices guaranteed that right could not be taken away because of the way we’re born. Yet that’s exactly what happened when California passed Proposition 8, which declared marriage valid only when between a man and a woman.

Last summer, after a lengthy trial, a federal court declared Prop 8 to be unconstitutional, saying that this discriminatory law does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution “the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.” Almost a year later, the case is on appeal, Prop. 8 still remains on the books, and a motion to throw out the case on blatantly homophobic grounds will be heard in federal district court on Monday.

Prop 8 continues to label some Americans as second class. It denies those Americans the fundamental rights afforded their fellow citizens. Like the anti-miscegenation statutes struck down 44 years ago, Prop 8 serves no purpose but to permit one group of Americans to degrade another.

Mildred Loving passed away in 2008, but on the 40th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision, she reflected on the impact of her case.

“I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all.”

Mildred and Richard Loving were not political people — they were a committed couple who believed they should have the ability to share their lives together, just as their neighbors did.

As Mildred Loving said four year ago, “That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

And that is why Proposition 8 must not stand.

Julian Bond is on the advisory board for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, chairman emeritus of the NAACP, professor of history at the University of Virginia and a scholar in residence at American University.

7538: New Leader For NAACP.

From The New York Times…

Health Executive to Lead N.A.A.C.P.

By Ian Urbina

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Saturday announced the selection of its first new board leader in more than a decade.

Roslyn M. Brock, 44, the board’s current vice chairwoman, will become chairwoman of the board, taking the reins from Julian Bond, who last year, on the eve of the organization’s centennial celebration, announced his decision to step down. The 64-member board is the policymaking arm of the organization.

In being named vice chairwoman of the N.A.A.C.P. board at 35, Ms. Brock was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position.

Previously she worked in health care administration and policy. In her current job as a vice president of Bon Secours Health Care, Ms. Brock serves as the chief spokeswoman on government relations, advocacy and public policy.

“This is the time for renewal,” said Mr. Bond, 70, who took over the chairmanship in 1998. “We have dynamic new leadership. Roslyn understands firsthand how important youth are to the success of the N.A.A.C.P. She was introduced to the N.A.A.C.P. 25 years ago when she served the N.A.A.C.P. as a youth board member and Youth and College Division State Conference president.”

The most recognized organization in the civil rights establishment, the association was founded in 1909. One of its main missions was to fight the lynchings of blacks.

The organization has played an important role in virtually every major civil rights issue of the last century, including the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

It has struggled in recent years, however, with declining membership, financial and political problems and questions of how best to move forward. The group’s reputation was tarnished in the mid-1990s when it fired its president for using organization money to settle a sexual harassment claim against him. In 2007, it laid off more than a third of its staff because of a budget shortfall.

In 2008, the board selected Benjamin T. Jealous, an activist and former news executive, as its youngest president, breaking with a tradition of picking ministers and political leaders and rebuffing criticisms that it was out of touch with the concerns of younger African-Americans.

“We’re looking at a generational shift in our communities,” Ms. Brock said. “We have a 48-year-old president in the White House, an N.A.A.C.P. president who was 35 at the time of his election and a 44-year-old board chair. The wisdom of those who stood the test of time got us to this point, and the youth are who will ensure the future legacy of this organization.”

6242: The Name Is Bond. Julian Bond.

From The Associated Press…

Bond to seek new term as NAACP board chairman

By Ben Nuckols

BALTIMORE (AP) — Three weeks after announcing he would not seek another term as chairman of the NAACP’s national board, veteran civil rights activist Julian Bond said Tuesday that he has changed his mind.

Bond told The Associated Press Tuesday night he was flattered and pressured “in a positive way” by his board members to stay on. He first said he was interested in returning during an interview on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show” earlier in the day.

Bond said he had always wanted to be the board chairman during its centennial next year.

“You get to be 100 years old and you can’t wait for it to come around again. I want to spend more of my efforts celebrating,” he told the AP, adding that he had the support of most of the organization’s 64 board members.

In addition to the centennial festivities planned next year, Bond said he wanted to focus his efforts on raising funds for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which he acknowledged would be difficult in the troubled economy.

However, he said, “we survived the depression and this is not a depression year. If we survived that, we can survive this.”

Bond also said that even with the election of Barack Obama as president, the civil rights group has much work to in this country.

“We’re not the national association for the advancement of one person,” Bond said. “Obama has reached the mountaintop; we want to help others reach the mountaintop. That’s the unfinished work.”

Bond, 68, has been board chairman since 1998. He said three weeks ago that the time was right to let younger leaders take over the NAACP.

With Bond’s backing, Benjamin T. Jealous, 35, was chosen in May as president and CEO of the NAACP, becoming the youngest president in its history.

Jealous supports Bond’s decision to remain as chairman “100 percent,” said Carla Sims, an NAACP spokeswoman.

Bond provided stability and a respected national voice to the NAACP, which has been roiled in recent years by infighting and financial difficulties. He acknowledged clashing with Jealous’ predecessor, Bruce Gordon, who resigned abruptly in March 2007.

Bond helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1960 and participated in protests and registration campaigns throughout the South.

In 1965, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, which refused to seat him until the Supreme Court intervened the following year. He served for 20 years in the Georgia legislature before an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1986.

Associated Press writer Kasey Jones in Baltimore contributed to this story.

5701: Change Won’t Change Everything.

From The Associated Press…

NAACP head: Obama win won’t solve racial injustice

By DAN SEWELL | Associated Press Writer

CINCINNATI — Racial disparity will remain an issue in America, regardless of whether Barack Obama is elected as the nation’s first black president, the chairman of the NAACP told the organization’s national convention Sunday night.

Julian Bond, a veteran civil rights leader, said Obama’s candidacy doesn’t “herald a post-civil rights America, any more than his victory in November will mean that race as an issue has been vanquished in America.”

But he drew loud applause when he said the country, and “all of us here,” are taking pride in the success in this year’s campaign by a candidate who couldn’t have stayed in some cities’ hotels a few decades ago.

“We know that Obama’s electoral success -- even if he should win the ultimate prize – won’t signal an end to racial discrimination, but it does mark the high point of an interracial movement that dates back to the Underground Railroad,” Bond said, referring to Cincinnati’s historical role in helping fleeing slaves reach freedom.

Obama plans to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's convention Monday night, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain plans to speak Wednesday.

Bond was sharply critical of the Bush administration, saying it has undermined constitutional rights, failed to oppose racial discrimination, supported voter identification laws that suppress black voters and thrived on “politics of divide and conquer.”

He noted that a 2004 speech in which he criticized President Bush led to an IRS review of the NAACP’s tax-exempt status. Political campaigning is prohibited under the NAACP’s tax-exempt status, and the IRS investigation focused on whether the speech was too political

“The NAACP will continue to speak truth to power until this administration leaves town,” he said Sunday night.

A White House spokesman referred a request for comment to a Justice Department spokesman.

“One of the highest priorities of the Department of Justice and its Civil Rights Division is to protect voting rights and enforce specific federal laws that help to ensure that all qualified voters have an opportunity to cast their ballots and have them counted,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.

Bond detailed racial failures by past presidents of both parties, then took a verbal swing at former President Bill Clinton, who made critical comments about Obama while campaigning for his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton during Democratic primaries.

“We fared much better under the man who liked to be called ‘the first black president,’ but then we watched him try to bring down the man who would be the real first black president,” Bond said.

Obama recently called Clinton, and the former president has offered to campaign for him.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was scheduled to speak at the event earlier Sunday, was unable to fly to Cincinnati because of bad weather. Instead, his deputy mayor, Linda Gibbs, told the convention about New York City’s alternative to federal guidelines that determine who is living below the poverty line.