Under the baobab: With Biden administration, ‘We the people’ will finally look like all people
On Tuesday, Derrick Johnson along with other leaders of the NAACP will meet with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and the rest of their transition team in Wilmington, Delaware. They will discuss the role of historically under-represented peoples in the new government. The NAACP will be asking that more African Americans and other minorities be appointed to senior positions in the Cabinet. They stand on a good ground to have the discussion. The Biden/Harris ticket owes much of its success to the efforts of Black and brown people.
When Congressman Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, endorsed Biden he hadn’t come close to winning a single primary. African Americans, particularly Black women, were in the forefront of organizing, registering and getting out the vote for Biden. On Nov. 3 he received more votes for president than any other person in history. Our country will have a new government because of the enormous efforts of Black, brown and white Democratic women like Stacy Abrams in Georgia, Kay Yu of Pennsylvania, Siobhan Leonard and Gov. Whitmer of Michigan, Rep. Gwen Moore and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
The NAACP has been advocating for justice and equal rights since its inception in 1908. It was founded by 60 people (only seven of whom were Black) including renowned scholar W. E. B. DuBois, and activists Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell. They are the oldest continuously active civil rights organization in the country. They have struggled against racial discrimination in many ways, in the courts, promoting anti-lynching legislation, and working for social equality.
One of my heroes is among their more notable alumni, Justice Thurgood Marshall. He was a graduate of Howard University (Senator Harris’ alma mater). Justice Marshall was the founder and chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court and won 29 of them, including Brown V. Board of Education in 1954. Brown legally ended the de jure practice of racial discrimination in the United States, though clearly the society is still struggling with de facto aspects of racism. In 1967 he became the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Johnson.
Until its reorganization last year, both the local and Penn State chapters of the NAACP had been dormant. It is being re-energized under the leadership of President Lorraine Jones and other officers: vice president Anna Muramoto, secretary Jennifer Black and treasurer Kimisse King. Along with over 50 other registered members including Gary King, Terry Watson, Leslie Laing and Tierra Williams, the organization has been active in recruitment, social justice and educational issues. It is not the first time we have had local involvement with the NAACP.
A few years ago, Sen. Julian Bond invited Tony Leach’s Essence of Joy Choir and State College’s Loaves and Fish Theatre Company to perform James Weldon Johnson’s “God’s Trombones” at the NAACP’s National Leadership Meeting. Several members of Congress and other Washington, D.C. dignitaries attended the popular performance. Bond called the program, “a manifestation of Dr. King’s dream.”
Our post-Jan. 20 world will be new and different. For the first time ever, the country will have a national government that will mirror the diversity of the people that it leads. “We the people” will be reflected in a leadership that looks like the people, all of the people.
Sometimes we can lose ourselves in the craziness and sorrows of these distressing times. Our people are hungry. We are all fearful. Our children are suffering. Many of us are dying. Developing a more diverse leadership will not solve all of our problems, but, it is a good start to fixing one of them.