BLACKNJ.COM HONORS THE CIRCLES OF COLOR ORGANIZATION (COC) WITH THE OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD!!!
Monday, January 15, 2007
By CAROLYN FEIBEL
STAFF WRITER
(Photo)
"I have a dream."
Those words of Martin Luther King Jr. will be quoted today -- in rapture and reverence -- at celebrations across North Jersey.
The successes of the civil rights movement have spawned a multiplicity of dreams, voices, and leaders in black America, even as traditional civil rights groups such as the Urban League and NAACP struggle to reinvent themselves.
There are associations for African-American firefighters, Web developers, chefs and human resource managers. There are groups for black skiers and scuba divers. And black churches, fraternities and sororities abound.
"People have options," said Stephen Brown, a black securities lawyer from Englewood. "There are more organizations out there, and that's a great thing."
Brown's father was once president of the Urban League in Queens. But Brown, 35, is not a member of that group or the NAACP. Yet he's active in community life -- he belongs to the black lawyers association and the predominantly black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, and serves on economic development boards in Harlem and Queens. He also mentors black youth for the National Black MBA Association.
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In some ways, civil rights organizations like the NAACP are victims of their own successes. After the civil rights era, many blacks took advantage of new opportunities and freedoms -- moving into new jobs, neighborhoods and political offices.
Brown exemplifies that trend. He went from Yale to Columbia Law School, and now works for financial giant TIAA-CREF. He is also president of the Englewood school board.
The NAACP and Urban League have more competition for membership now.
"I would describe them broadly as being in a period of stagnation," said Joshua Guild, professor of history at Princeton's Center for African-American Studies. The past generations of middle-class teachers and civil service workers who took out lifetime memberships to the NAACP are dying off.
"I don't think their children or grandchildren have inherited that same sense of obligation or allegiance to organizations like the NAACP,"
Guild said.
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In North Jersey, the Urban League's Bergen chapter shut down for three months last year because donations were down. The NAACP in New Jersey has lost members since the 1980s and is "carried on the backs of senior citizens nearing retirement," said the state President, James Harris.
"I hate it," said Isaiah Jefferson, while surveying the teen-free crowd last week at an induction ceremony for new Bergen NAACP leaders. "There's a perception that 'this is for adults.' "
Jefferson owns a successful environmental company in Paramus. "There's been a lot of growth in our community but it's not unified. ... We're losing our kids because there's nothing for them to hold onto."
But all civic organizations and non-profits are competing for attention. Americans of all colors spend more time at work these days, and identify closely with their professions, Guild said.
"Now you come home and you're too tired to build unity," Jefferson said.
To corral those busy black achievers, Jefferson started a networking club for minority business professionals in North Jersey. "Circles of Color" offers a chance to find new clients but also "give back" by volunteering in local schools. Its motto is: "Doing good while doing well."
"We're building up each other's businesses," said accountant Patricia Penrose of East Brunswick.
"Circles of Color tries to keep money within the community," said Kevin Crews, a financial adviser from Montclair. "It empowers us as a people."
"Organizations like the Urban League need to address issues like Circles of Color addresses," said Eddie Hadden, the former director of the struggling Bergen chapter.
"It's harder to sell the mission of the Urban League," Hadden added. "It's a bit more of a challenge than when it used to be, when racism was more in your face."
But most agree there is still a great need for black civic groups. While overt racism has declined, there are new problems such as AIDS, the high proportion of black men in prison, and the lack of affordable housing.
"I think the issues are too diffuse and complicated to be addressed by two or for that matter six major civil rights-leaning organizations," said Clement Alexander Price, a professor of Afro-American history at Rutgers-Newark. "The national stage seems to be yielding to local leaders and issues."
Guild points to a gap between the middle-class blacks who have gone to college and achieved professional success, and low-income blacks who continue to languish in poor areas and in low wage jobs.
"That rift is widening and it affects the kind of venues in which African-Americans can organize broadly," he said.
"It would be unfair to expect a single organization to serve as an umbrella," he said, "but there are issues that affect African-Americans broadly that people can organize around, and still pursue their class interests and regional interests. Public education is one example."
The state NAACP is making public education funding one of its signature issues this year, Harris said, and will focus on recruiting young members.
"Our struggle is not over," said NAACP member Nathaniel Briggs of Teaneck.
E-mail: feibel@northjersey.com
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