Appeal threats fly over Houston’s NAACP vote
Younger members claim corruption after chapter incumbent re-elected
With one of the higher voter turnouts in its 100year history, the Houston chapter of the National Association of Colored People chose to stick with the status quo — re-electing James Douglas as president. Other longtime members, Claude Cummings, Carroll Robinson and Belinda Everette, also won top officer positions over a band of newer members.
“I think we need to try to get to know each other better,” first vice president-elect Claude Cummings said in the lobby of Harris County Judge Zinetta Burney’s courtroom after the member meeting, reflecting on the divisive elections. “We want to get to the same place, we just have different ideas of how to get there,” added Cummings, currently second vice president.
The challengers, however, announced they are appealing the results to
the national organization.
Thursday’s results climaxed a heated campaign over recent weeks. Nearly 1,000 votes were cast by secret ballot at the branch’s Wheeler Avenue headquarters, with the the Douglasled slate attracting roughly double the votes of the opponents.
Douglas, a professor of law at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, was not present at the meeting. After initial claims that the organization wasn’t in touch with its younger community swirled around, he contested that age was not the reason for the divide.
“It’s about a segment of the organization that wants to take the organization in a direction that other people don’t want to take it in,” he told the Chronicle last month.
Prior to Thursday’s meeting, members were greeted by constables patrolling the Griggs Road meeting place and required to show driver’s licenses and membership cards to enter the closed-door meeting at which reporters were not allowed to attend.
Three challengers, all of whom are in their 30s and have been branch members for one to two years, were seeking to replace veteran members as top officers. They said the chapter has become out of touch, that they want to make it more relevant by prioritizing the black community’s economic health and have thrown claims of corruption within the branch.
The challenge led by Lloyd Ford, Ciara Suesberry and Eddison Titus, among others, caused a split within the organization. Other disenfranchised members sided with them, embracing the contention that the group is not welcoming and inclusive of new ideas. During a heated confrontation between members on the sidewalk outside the headquarters Wednesday, one woman said, “You lock us out when we don’t agree.”
But longtime members said the newcomers raised “unsubstantiated” corruption claims, want to take the organization in the wrong direction and are too inexperienced within the organization to lead.
“When we talk about leaders, they have to have the intellectual knowledge of social justice issues and be articulate on those issues in a school board room, court room and in a CEO’s office,” executive director Yolanda Smith told the Chronicle last month. “Don’t think because you joined by April 3, you can run for office and become president of NAACP without having the knowledge of our social justice activities.”
Cummings echoed Smith’s statement, saying the challengers need to be involved in the group for longer so he can ensure “their heart is the right place for the organization.”
While Cummings, the group’s current second vice president, pushed a note of unity and working together and moving forward, challengers Ford, Suesberry and Titus say the fight is not yet over. They plan to appeal the election results, taking concerns of unethical voting procedures to the national branch. But they, too, talked about a shared fight within the community after what they called a day filled with tension and rudeness.
“It doesn’t matter who you’re voting for, we’re all here together,” Suesberry said. “At the end of the day we’re still making history, and if it’s about the empowerment of black communities, we should be treating each other better.”