Prior to traveling down to Naples, Florida to attend the NAACP’s Leadership 500 Summit last week, I had little familiarity with the organization. I knew it evolved out of W.E.B. Dubois’ Niagara Movement and that DuBois served for many years as a board member and editor of Crisis Magazine, the organization's official publication, still in publication today. But Following my initial immersion I was immediately impressed.
And not just with the organization, but also with the various ways NAACP is adapting to protect the civil rights of 21st century Americans. Tremendous doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling of interacting with such a large delegation of leaders, mostly under 40 years of age and fiercely committed to social justice. Next generation leaders involved with NAACP have made differences in their own communities and even their own lives, as their thirst for positively influencing those around them continues to be nurtured by America’s oldest civil rights organization.
Once back in Los Angeles at NationBuilder, a co-worker inquired of me why the organization continued to use the language of “colored." Personally I find the terminology more apropos than ever. Whether you identify as black, white, yellow, rainbow or other, these days, none of us are without any “color.” For demographics, even geography has become more amorphous thanks to the internet. It is clear to me now how much synergy exists between the century long work of the NAACP and that of NationBuilder whose goal is to empower everyone to be a leader.
As I noted in an article I penned on Leadership 500 for the Huffington Post, black organizations are not always known for having a clear leadership trajectory. But I saw evidence of leadership at the conference, both from those who attended Leadership 500 and the emphasis put on NAACP’s desire to take the best ideas in education, healthcare or technology back to DC where they can be implemented into the national framework and put to best use. This is of critical importance to one group of the color coalition - African-Americans. While we make up a huge portion of social media and mobile tech users, there is still much work to be done to incorporate meaningful uses of technology into our grassroots organizations and political groups.
Still jazzed from my visit to Naples, I’m even more moved to bridge the gap and enhance access to technology for all people of any color.
