Celebrating 100 Years of the NAACP

by Michael A. Jones

categories: Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights and Politics, Marriage Equality, Nonprofit Profiles

Published July 08, 2009 @ 06:17AM PT

Next week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (perhaps more commonly known by the acronym NAACP) will hold their Centennial Convention, marking 100 years as an organization dedicated to pursuing civil rights across the country.

In recent years, the NAACP has become a crucial player in the debate over marriage equality.  In particular, NAACP chairman Julian Bond has become one of the strongest and most supportive allies for LGBT rights.  In 2005 he told an LGBT gathering in Virginia:

The lessons of the civil rights movement of yesterday … is that sometimes the simplest of ordinary everyday acts, of taking a seat on a bus, of sitting down at a lunch counter, of applying for a marriage license, sometimes these can have extraordinary consequences, can change our world.

Pretty damn cool.  But that statement is eclipsed by Bond's comments last year in the wake of Proposition 8's passage in California:

Black people, of all people, should not oppose equality, and that is what gay marriage is.  God seems to have made room in his plan for interracial marriage, and he or she will no doubt do the same for same-sex marriage.

The NAACP also joined a host of civil rights organizations and businesses in calling for Proposition 8 to be overturned, with current NAACP President Benajmin Jealous saying:

The NAACP’s mission is to help create a society where all Americans have equal protection and opportunity under the law.  Our Mission Statement calls for the ‘equality of rights of all persons.’ Prop. 8 strips same-sex couples of a fundamental freedom, as defined by the California State Supreme Court. In so doing, it poses a serious threat to all Americans. Prop. 8 is a discriminatory, unprecedented change to the California Constitution that, if allowed to stand, would undermine the very purpose of a constitution and courts - assuring equal protection and opportunity for all and safeguarding minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

It's hard to say what the next 100 years will bring.  Here's hoping that it doesn't take another century before marriage equality is real all across this country.  But no matter how long it does take, it's clear that the NAACP will be there as an ally.  Happy 100 years, NAACP.