|
Message from the President!
November marked the 70th Anniversary of the NAACP Brockton Area Branch. On this anniversary, we chose to honor our legacy and veterans within our organization and a Tuskegee Airman.
On Novemer 16, 2024, we honored:
Steven C. Abrams, U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Veteran
Apostle Edward Campbell, U.S. Airforce Veteran
Mr. Howard C. Carter, Jr., Tuskegee Airman
Miles Jackson, Air Force Veteran
Thomas E, Martin, U.S. Marine and U.S. Army Veteran
Timothy Earle Trask, Vietnam Army Veteran
It was a very specal night! Not only did our veterans receive awards and recognition from our branch, citations were given by Mayor Robert Sullivan, by State Senator Michael Brady, by State Representatives Rita Mendes, with Michelle Dubois presenting and by the School Committee with Vice Chair Tony Rodrigues presenting. Thank you. This made the evening for the veterans even more memorable.
Our 70 Years
The NAACP Brockton Area Branch is seventy (70) years old! Seventy years encompasses a lifetime of living, of struggle and affirmation! But you know the real signifier for seventy is acquired wisdom. We are wiser or supposed to be wiser at 70 because we have reached a threshold of observations and reflections about life. We honor, salute and appreciate all the veterans, dead and alive. We celebrate and elevate NAACP Brockton Branch’s anniversary and share our blessings with the veterans and embrace them for the service and courage to serve in our wars and armed forces.
We, the branch, of a national organization, devoted to civil rights and social justice was brought into existence in 1954. One year before that historic founding of the Brockton Branch, another vision came into existence. That vision was to make real the care and support for the veterans from Brockton and surrounding areas. Brockton showed real concern about the mental challenges of war and its post-war behavior. In 1953, many of us were not informed about the stress and strain of our troops coming home to try everyday life again. It was extremely difficult and numerous service people were suffering from the aftermath of war, particularly after coming home from Vietnam. In fact, the term Post Traumatic Stress became a national recognized phrase in the 1970s gaining national traction and in the 1980s became a mental health diagnosis. However, long before a nation collectively worked on these mental health concerns, this city, this Brockton had those concerns as top priorities for the veterans. Those major concerns actually built the VA facility in 1953 in Brockton to provide at first mental health resources but quickly decided to expand to a variety of services. In the year it was built, 1953, it was the largest and most expensive VA facility in the country and it became a major employer in our city.
Organizations don’t exist without the people fueling them. And in the early years, we were “lit” as the young folks say today! Our first president was Bernard Cohen, a Jewish man. We were great lovers of freedom and the activism to make it come true and that small Brockton crew in the 1950s and the 1960s was everything. Faith in 1954 and Resilience in 2024. Faith was our rock and started our journey but Resilience was the name of the game. We have in Black musical culture a tradition, where some people will call you initially out and while other people will give you the response, Call and Response. The early founders called for Faith and had it abundantly: faith that believed that a small band of Black and White citizens could create a branch and the response was us. Our branch via hope, struggle and some victories witnessed and experienced that no matter the stony road, resilience will keep us on a steady journey and at pivotal moments, regenerate our spirits. The members started it all and you could not be a member during that time and not know all the members, such a commodious Black and White family! But in 1954, these early men and women had commitment, an overwhelming desire to work with others and change the world for the better.
The living members and the ones that left us were all a part of the branch tapestry that we were building and through resilience kept building. The members undoubtedly helped our branch to form our first identity.
What was our identity in 1954? Well, I can tell you that the initial identity of our branch was assisted by the extraordinary events that were happening in our world. Which was different than our later identities in the 1980s and 1990s because that evolution was forged by the pressing local issues in our city. Affordable housing, job opportunities, discrimination and school issues were keys to our developing identity. And yes, we witnessed the Boston Bus Crisis and the impressive hatred that was summoned by that crisis, but here our national office and of course, Brockton and Boston Branches, thought we fought that raw prejudice but it was not only a Black and White situation. We being lovers of justice and liberty thought how ironic that poor Whites and poor Blacks were fighting over substandard schools. Like Dr. King, we were beginning to understand more and more about the gap between the haves and have nots in all groups. Do we remember the Poor People’s campaign, something that Dr. King and others were working on before he was killed?
Brockton remained off-limits to riots and racial animus and I think our Branch played a role in a riot-freed city. But of course, there were not as many people of color in Brockton as opposed to Boston. We had quality teaching in our schools, particularly our high school, which had a solid reputation in the 1980s in Brockton. So, our Brockton Branch learned from the Boston School Crisis and other crisis situations saw that part of combating racial prejudice was through greater knowledge of each other and learning how to communicate with one another. There is no organization like ours who have historically and proudly so, had Black Americans and White Americans fighting together for freedom and justice. That is one of our hallmarks and we have never abandoned it; even with many of our Black organizations, starting in late 1970s and 1980s started to discourage Whites and Blacks from working together for social justice. Understandably so, many Black people were exhausted and yes bitter too; rightly the logic was - why are we fighting for rights that should be naturally ours because we are citizens. Understandably so; but for our organization and branch, we never gave into isolating any of our citizens: if anyone came with the commitment to fight for freedom and social justice, she or he, without questioned, was welcomed in our branch. The NAACP has always been a diverse organization and always adjusting and trying to work out a model for Blacks and Whites to work together. Before its national founding in 1905, White organizations excluded Blacks, even if they were organizations devoting to freedom. When our national organization was formed, Blacks and Whites, from the beginning were there. Outside the abolitionist movement, bringing these two groups together was rare at that time because the prejudice was powerful and almost structurally universal. Yet these two groups, Blacks and Whites, were the pillars to our organization.
In fact, one of the more interesting things about our branch was that from the very beginning we sought and embraced coalitions. If other individuals and organizations were fighting in the neighborhood of social justice and freedom, they belonged to us too.
Seventy years (70) has produced wisdom but it also conjures up a canvas of memories. Wisdom was not there in 1954 because we had just started our branch; almost everything was fresh. However, these were years of sorrow from several assassinations, counter culture mayhem, civil rights groups coming together and then no more connections, war on poverty, Vietnam war, perpetual protest, but less not forget the victories. Two of our greatest achievements were the civil and voting rights bills, 1964 and 1965.
We need to also mention a bill that the many don’t connect to our civil rights and social justice movements but this bill would not have passed but without our eyeballs, social forces and relentless pressure on the United States Congress, we would not have had the other victory, the Immigration Bill of 1965. The most important provision in the bill was the elimination of quotas for certain countries. That bill opened up our country to immigrants from Black, Brown and Yellow countries who had been severely limited. Western and Eastern European countries were not favored during this period.
Black and White Americans involved in civil rights and social justice were main contributors in demanding our country allow colored immigrants to pursue the American Dream too. We did that and Brockton is an example of a city being revitalized by a majority/minority population and immigrants We now have the largest number of immigrants (33%) in Massachusetts. The NAACP and our Brockton Branch became one in regarding and recognizing the iconic slogan “We Are All Americans Now.”
The 20th century was one of the most colorful and significant centuries in history. Very harsh with so many deadly wars but simultaneously, it was a century of real joy. Activism in this century innovated and extended freedoms and greater freedoms - more people in the 20th century were involved in shoring up their voices and agencies than at any other time in history.
Voter registration was crucial for Black people. Our branch and others followed suit and took seriously, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, for a greater and improved knowledge of political power. We took a break shall I say in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but we had our MLK Breakfast ritual, rented an office downtown for a while and the branch had a membership drive during these years trying to gain new members before the end of the 20th century.
The twentieth century was closing and our branch was still alive. The year 2,000 ended, the 21st century arrived; our branch had lived a little over a half a century!
This new century added an early sense of revitalization not only in Brockton but other enthusiastic vibes across the country. Health became a big issue for both national and local organizations. Our branch response was to build effective coalitions with the medical establishment. A tradition which sporadically performed in the 20th but became a staple in the new century with political debates for mayors and city councilors. 2010 is the year where we saw the first Black president and voting and voter registration became as crucial to us again in this century as it was in the 20th.
In the name of those foregone days and indelible memories of our branch and city, in the spirit of faith that signaled our branch’s birth in the last century; hoping, striving, supporting and claiming future generations for progress; and in the spirit of faith and resilience that our city and veterans who from the very beginning, innovated a model of care and concern for veterans, we appreciate both our branch members and veterans who are no longer with us but who had embraced liberty and democracy in their lives. We honor ALL free-spirited people fighting for equality and social justice, in our city, in our state, in our country.
Onward to the next 70 years!
-Phyllis Ellis
| 
