I will not feign objectivity. In my local area (Cincinnati, OH), the NAACP seems almost irrelevant and, believe me, there is no shortage of social justice issues that the organization could take up.

However, short of the annual Martin Luther King breakfast, you don’t hear too much out of them.

I wouldn’t say that this was always the case. As I understand it, previous Cincinnati NAACP leadership has been on the vanguard of social justice issues. Even those that weren’t were, at least, willing to speak out on these issues.

However, today, you have an organization at the crossroads. On one side, you have current leadership that is most interested in bringing the 2008 NAACP convention to the city. On the other side, you have a challenger who wants to see the local chapter get back to dealing with the issues of the people. Well, this could all be settled tonight.

The candidates, current Cincinnati NAACP president Edith Thrower and challenger, Christopher Smitherman, will, for the second time in 4 months, vie for the office of president. The previous election was mired in controversy when, according to some, a board member, Victor Brown, violated the bylaws by taking some 24 disputed ballots home with him and counting them with no oversight. When the normal voting ending, Smitherman was up by 14 votes. After Brown’s count, he certified that, out of the 24, Smitherman gained 1 new vote, Thrower gained 16 new votes and the 5 remaining votes were thrown out. Therefore, Thrower was declared the victor by 1 vote.

Smitherman disputed the outcome of the election and the NAACP finally conceded, agreeing to a new vote.

Obviously, this dispute has created divided opinions among the group’s members. On one side, people are seeing the good that could come from Thrower’s good relations with corporate donors. On the other side, people are saying that the NAACP’s mission is to be a social justice organization and should work on that. I don’t see these things being mutually-exclusive but, there is an issue about which should take precedence. Also, Smitherman is no friend of the business community or the police. He has been very vocal about how both are not holding up their end of the deal when it comes to black folks. This is why some say he would be bad for corporate donations.

In the end, I am sort of a rabble-rouser so, I lean more towards the need to shake things up but, I guess the other side has a point, as well. Therefore, I am just hoping for a fair vote that reflects the true will of the Cincinnati NAACP’s membership.

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