Julian Bond, the NAACP chairman, opened the July 7–12 convention emphasizing the voting rights violations in Florida during the 2000 presidential elections and the appointment of conservative politicians in the cabinet of President George Bush. "The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has found that African-American voters in Florida were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected," Bond stated. He told convention delegates that the NAACP has filed a lawsuit against Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris and others.

Delegates at the convention voted to oppose Bush's "faith-based initiative" bill, which would allow religious charities access to $8 billion a year in federal funds. "The NAACP opposes...initiatives which do not include traditional and well-established employment rights, civil rights, and anti-discrimination protections that can be enforced by the nation's court system," said NAACP president Kweisi Mfume.

The NAACP is the country's largest and oldest civil rights organization. Under the leadership of Mfume and Bond, both prominent politicians in the Democratic Party, the NAACP has sought to regain a measure of cohesion as a national organization, influence within bourgeois politics, and corporate financial backing. The size of the convention and range of activities in local areas that participants have been involved in--especially in the South--is one indication of the revitalization of the branches of the organization in many areas.

The resistance of working people across the country to the ruling-class assault on Black rights, struggles against attacks by the employers and the government on the unions, and fights to defend democratic rights all put their stamp on the meeting.  
 
Labor rally and town hall meeting
For working people in attendance, the highlights of the national gathering included a July 10 march and rally to demand higher wages and better benefits for hotel and restaurant workers in the city and a town hall meeting sponsored by the organization's Youth and College Division. Some 250 people attended the labor action, which included unionists from the United Auto Workers; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees; Service Employees International Union; and United Food and Commercial Workers. AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka spoke at the rally and was also the keynote speaker at the NAACP labor luncheon held just before the demonstration. He called for support for the fight to force the state of South Carolina to drop felony riot charges against the "Charleston Five," longshoremen who are under house arrest and facing prosecution around a cop attack on a union picket line in Charleston, South Carolina.

One of the marchers was Alfred Rainey, a 45-year-old auto worker and member of the UAW local civil rights committee in Decatur, Alabama. Rainey said he is trying to strengthen his union at the General Motors plant where he works. "Alabama is a right-to-work state and there is a hostile environment there for the union," he said. "This is not just related to African-Americans, who number 600 out of 2,700 workers. There are few Hispanics and women in the plant." Rainey is also vice president of the Morgan County NAACP branch, which is planning a demonstration to protest the killing of James Sharpley, who was shot in the back by a state conservation officer.

In the months leading up to the convention NAACP members and local leaders participated in labor rallies, including a demonstration to support strikers at the Up-To-Date Laundry in Baltimore and a solidarity rally of 5,000 unionists and others in Columbia, South Carolina, to defend the five framed-up dock workers. A contingent of longshoremen joined the NAACP-led march last year of nearly 50,000 people in Columbia to demand the state government remove the Confederate battle flag from atop the Capitol.

"That was the largest march ever held in South Carolina," said David Walker, president of the NAACP branch in Aiken, South Carolina. Walker also joined the June 9 action to defend the Charleston Five. "The flag was removed from atop the Capitol dome, but is still flying on state grounds and is now in our faces, 30 feet from the ground. It must be removed completely and put into a museum," he said. NAACP branches in South Carolina are planning a state convention in October, where they will discuss planning another march against the racist flag, possibly in January on Martin Luther King Day.  
 
Young activists on campuses
The young people who participated in the convention included high school students who are organizing their NAACP youth branch to deal with social questions on campus. Michelle Newby and Kenneth Anderson, two 17-year-old students in the San Fernando Valley, California, spoke of plans to organize opposition to random body searches of students by school security. They aim to get their NAACP branch involved in opposing this attack on students' privacy rights. "They search you if you're late for school and most of the searches are done to African-American teenagers," said Anderson. "The school authorities say they have the right to search our lockers at any time," Newby added.

Newby and Anderson attended the Worldwide Youth Workshop that discussed career "opportunities for people of color in the international arena." Newby said she wasn't interested in that workshop but does follow world politics like events in the Middle East and China. "We always get a one-sided view from the U.S. government on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," she said. "The Israeli soldiers shoot those young Palestinian children who are throwing rocks because they know no other way to stop something they think is wrong. It's like what we did in the '60s. You do what you have to do to fight. Meanwhile, the Israeli government is preaching that it is nonviolent and wants to sign a peace treaty."  
 
 
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