NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
NORTH CAROLINA STATE CONFERENCE
114 W. Parrish Street, Second Floor Durham, North Carolina 27701
866-626-2227 919-682-4700 FAX 919-682-4711
www.naacpnc.org www.ncprosecutorialmisconduct.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II Amina J. Turner
President Executive Director
EMBARGOED: 23 MARCH 2010 4:00PM
News Release
23 March 2010
Contact: Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President, 919-394-8137
Atty. Al McSurely, Communications Chair, 919-389-2905
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, State Conference President, North Carolina NAACP
Remarks at Wake County School Board Meeting, March 23, 2010
Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Wake County School Board:
WE WILL NEVER GO BACK
Last time, I delivered a letter of intention. Today, I want to re-state why the NAACP is against the policies that the anti-diversity members of the Wake County School Board are proposing.
One hundred forty-two years ago, North Carolina tried to step forward… Rev. Samuel Ashley, who became the first State Superintendent of Education, and Rev. J. W. Hood a black minister of the AME Zion Church, who later became the first Assistant Superintendent of Education both supported putting the following in our State Constitution…
"The people have a right to the privileges of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right." And they insisted that race and separation of the races have no place in our state constitution. This is the very principle that you voted against in your last meeting.
56 years ago, America tried again to step forward and passed Brown v Board of Education.
Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall when presenting his closing arguments as the chief counsel for the NAACP in the landmark decision Brown vs. Board of Education argued against the separation of children by race. He said, “…they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together, they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come out of school and play ball together.” And he concluded, “And now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make it clear that this [separation (emphasis added)] is not what our Constitution stands for.”
A few years ago, Wake County Schools decided to step forward again and embraced socio-economic diversity. We know what makes good schools:
- Stop resegregation;
- Insure equity in funding;
- High quality teachers;
- Smaller class rooms;
- A focus on Math, Science, History and Reading;
- Parental involvement, and
- Eliminating inequities in suspensions, graduation, performance and many other factors, which are necessary to achieve school excellence and student achievement.
Now the anti-diversity group of this board wants to step back. This is morally wrong because it violates the principal of unity and justice spoken of in every faith tradition. It is legally wrong because your directive we believe violates the standards of the state constitution, the federal constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s economically wrong because resegregation will create narrow, separate, gated, private schools with public dollars, which is costly. Wake County Schools already has a $20 million deficit. This plan makes no fiscal or economic sense.
Let it be known your press to go backward will serve to only intensify our moral, political and legal fight to go forward. What you do tonight does not mark an end to our cause, but the beginning of an even more unified effort to stop the plans you hope to implement. We will never go back!
In the next two to three weeks, because you would not give the 45 minutes we requested to put a data-based research presentation before you, we will hold our own public mass meeting, entitled, WE WILL NEVER GO BACK: THE EDUCATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL CHALLENGE WE MUST WAGE AGAINST THE POLICIES OF THE ANTI-DIVERSITY MEMBERS OF THE WAKE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD.
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