On only his second day on the job as the NAACP's new president, 35-year old Benjamin Todd Jealous convened a conference call where members of the Black press and some Black bloggers were given the opportunity to ask him questions about the NAACP's response to Hurricane Ike as well as its new online voter registration drive called Upload to Uplift.
Veteran journalists and neophyte bloggers were afforded the same access and respect -- a perhaps prescient dynamic of which other venerable Black institutions should take notice.
Mr. Jealous, a Generation X'er and himself a fifth-generous NAACP member, follows the brief tenure of Corporate America refugee Bruce Gordon whose outgoing memo to the NAACP's bloated board of directors was leaked first to Afro-Netizen earlier this year.
It is true that over the years, Afro-Netizen has been critical of the NAACP and its waning primacy in the lives of African Americans on a national level. However, as the proud grandson of a former national board member for 12 years (Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, Sr.), I am neither prepared to -- nor want to -- eulogize this historic civil rights organization. I recognize, however, that when some people read "historic" they think "relic". This is as much a problem of perception that Mr. Jealous will have to strategically address as it is an organizational one that is not likely to change overnight -- or in an election cycle.
After all, change is on the lips of many Americans these days. But as an organizational productivity consultant (my day job) as well as from my perspective as a former, long-serving board member of a 115-year old family business, I know quite well that indeed most people fear change -- and organizations tend to loathe it. It goes without saying that old, traditional and highly hierarchical organizations loathe change that much more -- even when they know it's inevitable.
That said, I am confident that Mr. Jealous' vision and activist credentials will help put the NAACP on a path towards fully leveraging 21st Century assets and tactics while honoring the long, proud traditions that represent the best of what our community has accomplished when we have kept our eyes on the prize and marched steadfastly towards social justice.
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