RH Jones: The NAACP is right 'on the money' on this one!

From RH Jones, October 9, 2011
Subject: NAACP on our side

To all:

It is of great pleasure that I, as a Life Member of the Ohio Retired Teachers Association (ORTA), report to you that the over 100-year-old organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is on our side and on our same page. I especially invite my fellow ORTA members and all of you to the read the article that appeared in the Beacon today, 10/08/2011, Community page, entitled: “NAACP leader speaks of rights at fundraiser; Russell addresses controversial bills” by Beacon Journal staff writer Marilyn Miller.

As retired career teachers, we welcomed and loved all of our students regardless of race, nationality or color. They were all simply students to us. Not being able to except all children of all the people would exempt any of you of being able to survive your long years of teaching. Being prejudiced, you could not teach, nor be legally able to teach in our Ohio public school system. Therefore, as a person who strongly values the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, you most certainly must agree 100% with the words of the keynote speaker Leon Russell, the vice chairman of the NAACP organization’s national director to move the nation forward.

Here is my brief synopsis of the Russell’s speech: We need a nation free of prejudice, however,

1) Recent efforts in Ohio to deny American dream by threatening civil rights

2) An Ohio effort to discourage people from voting and preventing workers the right to collective bargaining or having a voice in how a workplace operates

3) Schools more segregated now than before the 1954 Brown decision

4) Charters take away from public schools hurting there ability to educate the masses

5) NAACP working on education, criminal justice economic development, civic engagement and health.

6) There must be collaboration across party lines. Due to race, the NO vote prevails

7) We must demand accountability and “get over the fact that people have made the word compromise a dirty word.”

He goes on to state “the NAACP is nonpartisan, but not nonpolitical”. This is an ORTA model for change that would help the ORTA to go forward. I urge everyone to go on Ohio.com and look up this wonderfully enlightened article.

RHJones, ORTA member and proud member of the Concerned Ohio Retired Educators