CHAVIS: I think it’s significant that I’m the youngest person ever elected to serve as executive director of the nation’s oldest and largest civil-rights organization. I’m 45. I’m old enough not to be out of touch with the older generation, but I’m young enough to be in touch with young people… I have connections with Public Enemy. In my prior job at the Commission for Racial Justice, Sister Souljah was on my staff. I consider her a close friend.
[Our current battle on] Capitol Hill impacts whether there will be jobs for young people this summer. It impacts whether we’re going to have a long, hot summer and whether the cities are going to explode. People need jobs . . . Proportionately, the economic state of the African-American community is worse in 1993 than it was in 1963. So how do you get jobs? In part, through the public-policy arena.
First, I would walk through the community with this brother. I would say to the Boston branch of the NAACP, I have talked to this brother, and he needs a job. If he demonstrates that he is serious, we would cosign for a job, for an apartment, things he would never be eligible for by himself because of his record or his prior activities. The NAACP would be a bridge for him. He could go back home with his girlfriend and his child and live with respect and dignity.
The NAACP cannot-and I would say to him, you cannot-tolerate a situation where you sell death and destruction to the African-American community. When I was in prison unjustly I was in prison cells with dealers who thought like he does, that you can get over. If you sell death and destruction, the likelihood of your longevity on the street is severely shortened. I think that these young men who are hardened do not need to be softened but need to use that hardness, that stamina, in something constructive. I’ve seen the logical conclusion of drug dealing, and it is death.
I would convince them that their life is worth living. With drive-by shootings, there has been a lowering of the value of life in the African-American community. We have to convince people that life itself is an asset. We’ve had success already in South-Central L.A. People are not dealing drugs but dealing with putting kids into school. We can’t say that this is a lost generation.
The NAACP, because it’s the oldest and the largest, is probably also the most conservative. But we are changing, and what my selection denotes is that the pace of change is faster. Twenty years ago, nobody knew the term “environmental racism”: deliberately targeting people of color communities for toxic waste [dumps]. One of the things we need to do is to discern these new forms of racism and to inform the community.
If there’s something new I’m bringing, it’s methodology. I’m an activist, a front-line person-I believe in going to the source of the problem. Two days after I was selected, I went to L.A. I didn’t go to a downtown hotel, I went to the ‘hood. I stayed in the housing projects, met with gang leaders.
Two weeks ago we helped to sponsor the first national gang-leadership summit; they’re putting down their guns, trying to stop the fratricidal killing. Who’s going to fellowship, if you will, with these brothers and sisters? No federal program is going to stop black-on-black crime. The NAACP has to reach into our communities-and remain there. No one has a magic wand to remove the mines from the minefield, but we have a capacity to navigate young people through.
First is to launch an aggressive intergenerational recruitment, reaching out to young African-Americans. Second, to ensure the financial stability of the NAACP. Third, to expand the organization’s base to other people of color. Fourth, to expand our vision to the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa in the tradition of W.E.B. DuBois. A brother or sister in Watts or the South Side of Chicago should have as a point of reference not just that place but Dakar, Harare. There are hundreds of brothers and sisters out on the street with technical skills who could be using them in Africa and the Caribbean. The NAACP is situated to hook this up.
I think history is important. Very often in the African-American community we become ahistorical. When we become ahistorical, we become apolitical. Much of the disillusionment or the hopelessness among young African-Americans today is derived from the ahistorical consciousness.
I’m not blaming young people. If young African-Americans don’t know the value of the history of our struggle for justice in this country, it’s because we as adults have not transmitted that history effectively.
I myself admire Malcolm X. I would caution against the romanticization of his image, the romanticization of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, without coming to grips with how we can apply these lessons to the present. What stood out about Malcolm was his ability to unapologetically articulate the aspirations of the African-American community. The NAACP must do that; we can’t just have these people on a poster or a hat.
I was a political prisoner. It’s analogous to say what happened to Mandela was what happened to Ben Chavis. I got a sentence of 34 years and spent almost five in jail. I went in committed, and I came out more committed. Rather than serve time, I decided that I was going to make time serve me. I earned a master’s degree at Duke University while I was incarcerated. We organized the movement behind prison bars. Prison is demoralizing, debilitating-filthy. But I was able to gain faith because of my connection to the movement. Even though I was locked up, my point of reference was not that cell.
Today 25 percent of all African-American males between the ages of 19 and 28 are behind bars or on parole [or probation]. The rate of incarceration of black males in America is higher than in South Africa. And we don’t need the NAACP? We definitely need the NAACP.
