On Brown v. Board anniversary, I ask the NAACP: Whose side are you on? I was in high school when Brown v. Board of Education was decided 63 years ago. That makes me an old man, one who was at the forefront of the civil rights movement during its most tumultuous days. I took the fight for equality to South Florida, joining the Miami Urban League in 1963 and becoming its CEO at the age of 24. There I met Martin Luther King, Jr., and from that inspiration took on a power structure that through practice, if not written policy, dictated what black people were and were not allowed to do. We succeeded in overcoming that by developing young black leaders, by refusing to accept subservience, by rejecting incremental gains and, instead, demanding full inclusion. This is the same formula that brought change to communities across this nation. Those were historic times. Back then, if I were to have looked forward, I would have envisioned a much different 2017 than the one that currently exists — a 2017 in which Dr. King’s hopes for our nation had been achieved. Yet divides remain wide, and at times, they seem to […]
