DETROIT (ABP) — Despite President Obama's election, African Americans still have a long way to go before achieving racial equality, NAACP head Benjamin Jealous told a group of black Baptists meeting in Detroit.
"We're not the National Association for the Advancement of a Colored Person," Jealous, said June 25 at the 104th annual session of the National Baptist Convention Congress of Christian Education. "Until all of them are OK, we'll be fighting hard." Jealous' remarks were reported in the Detroit Free Press.
Jealous, the youngest president in the history of the 100-year-old civil-rights organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said despite the historic inauguration of America's first African-American president, "to be honest, not much has changed" for many people of color.
Benjamin Jealous took over as president and CEO of the NAACP last year at age 35.
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He said many in the United States still suffer from extreme poverty, racial profiling, poor schools, and a criminal justice system that he said unfairly targets minorities. While praising Obama as a role model, Jealous said the fight for freedom is far from over.
About 40,000 Baptists attended the June 22-26 gathering to study hot-button issues like AIDS in the church, pastors' compensation and women in the pulpit. The June gathering is the primary training event for the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., America's oldest and largest African-American religious convention with an estimated membership of 7.5 million, and one of several annual gatherings the group schedules throughout the year.
The convention's main annual session is scheduled Sept. 7-11 in Memphis, Tenn. Business items will include electing a new president to replace William Shaw, pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia, who has held the post since 1999.
One of two candidates vying for the presidency is Henry Lyons, a former president who served nearly five years after he was convicted of swindling more than $5.2 million from the organization's corporate partners in 1999.
Lyons will face Julius Scruggs, pastor of the First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., currently the convention's vice president at large, in the race for a five-year term.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.