NAACP 106th Convention:The New NAACP President Speaks



Cornell William Brooks is the President and CEO of the NAACP. He has served in that position since 2014. He is an American Lawyer. He began his career as a legal clerk for Chief Judge Sam J. Ervin III, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit .As a Washington D.C. attorney he served a number of posts; he directed the FCC’s Office of Communication Business Opportunities; Executive Director of the Fair Housing Council; a trial lawyer for both the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to joining the NAACP, Brooks led the Newark-based New Jersey Institute for Justice. There he directed the Institutes successful efforts to win passage of three landmark prison reentry bills.
            Cornell William Brooks esq is a graduate of Jackson State University  where he earned a BA degree, with honors in political science and a Master in Divinity from Boston University School of Theology. He also earned Juris Doctorate from Yale University Law School where he served as senior editor of the law review. He ran as the Democratic candidate in 1998 against incumbent Conservative Republican Frank Wolf, who has been in office since 1981. In that election ,Cornell William Brooks won 25.2% of the vote to Frank Wolf’s 71.6%. Cornell William Brooks is also a fourth generation pastor of the AME church.
            Cornell William Brooks was the keynote speaker at the First Plenary session of the 106th NAACP convention. He outlined his speech well. It was part legal brief ,part sermon. He had a sense of charisma . He used both statistics and biblical stories. He began with the problems of police brutality of the past year. Beginning with the murder of Michael Brown an ending with the knee of a policeman in the backs of a bikini clad teenager and a pregnant woman ,both of whom were African American.
            He felt hundreds of thousand of African Americans have been turned away from the ballot box ; as a result of Shelby County v. Holder 570 U.S.___ (2013), the court ruled section 4b is unconstitutional.  It governs the coverage formula that determines the jurisdictions subject to preclearance based on their histories of past discrimination. Section 5 was rendered useless unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula. Since the ruling several states have passed voter ID laws; removed online registration, early voting, same day registration, “Souls to the Polls” Sunday voting, and pre-registration for teens turning 18 years of age.
            Cornell William Brooks believes the American dream is a promissory note. He asks when will our promissory note be redeemed ? He believes America is the promised  land. Like the Hebrew scouts in the book of Numbers we have entered the promised land. “We see that it is the land of milk and honey. We are not insects like the scouts referred to themselves when comparing themselves to the peoples of Canaan. We are not insects. We ae not grasshoppers. We are America’s iconic institution. We are the NAACP. We fight for voting rights. The Supreme Court has been involved in the crime of disenfranchisement. We must never give up…. We are the NAACP.”

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