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As NAACP Celebrates A Century, Pasco Group Must Focus On Future

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By IMANI ASUKILE

Tribune Correspondent

Published: February 13, 2009

On a cold day a hundred years ago in upstate New York, a group of progressive men and women from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds formed an organization to combat national ills such as lynching, Jim Crow laws and voter disenfranchisement. Unbeknownst to them, they also paved the way for people such as President Barack Obama and NFL coaches Mike Tomlin and Tony Dungy.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which turned 100 on Thursday, has to be admired for its longevity, especially in light of the dangers its leaders faced. Many NAACP officials and supporters were murdered for their involvement in freedom activities. Medgar Evers in Mississippi is one of the most famous cases, along with Harry T. Moore, a former Florida field secretary. For fear of violence and economic intimidation, the organization's membership remains private to this day.

That may explain why some prominent leaders in the black community, such as educator Odell Mickens, were not among those who formed Pasco County's NAACP chapter in 1968. It would have amounted to career suicide.

Leading the charge were Charles Arnade, a professor at the University of South Florida, and his wife, Marjorie; citrus grower Dolphus "Red" Pressley, the group's first president; Sister Mary Virginee Fish, a teacher at St. Joseph's Elementary School; Barbara Plummer, a nurse at Saint Leo College; Sister Thomasine Ricou, the principal at St. Anthony's Catholic school; James Horgan, a professor at Saint Leo College; local businesswoman Naomi Jones; Melvin Dennard, a schoolteacher; and the Rev. Eddie Roberts, who started the community observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Others, including William Ammons, Nesbit Blaisdell, Arthell Norwood, James Pickett and Father Marion Bowman, the abbot at Saint Leo Abbey, also helped.

Most of those charter members are dead now.

The group was centered in Dade City and east Pasco County, where you had a bigger black population than in New Port Richey. Today, the group serves the entire county and alternates its monthly meetings between the two cities.

Group Supported Student

The local NAACP chapter formed after the dean of students at Pasco High School had a black student named Mayjor Walker arrested for refusing to get off a school bus, making him eligible for the draft. Arnade and the NAACP called the school board's support of the principal's decision "naïve and irrational," and Arnade wrote letters about how Walker had been treated and about what needed to be done to desegregate the schools.

In a short time, the organization had put the school board and local governments on notice: Do the right thing, or the NAACP will be coming your way. It highlighted the egregious nature of racial segregation.

"There were so many push-button issues waiting to be addressed," said Marge Arnade, 79, who served as vice president of the charter group and now lives in Leesburg, Va.

The group desegregated the war memorial on the Pasco County Courthouse lawn, forced city leaders to integrate the taxpayer-funded Dade City Cemetery, challenged police misconduct, forced the city's recreation department to stop segregating dances for teens, coordinated a strike over wages against the Multiline Canning Co., and provided drama and art classes for neighborhood children.

The group spoke for the black community in the mid-1980s after Dade City police brought in dogs to control black teens after an incident in what is now the James Irvin Community Center. In 1989, the chapter president, Sherman Milton, organized an alternative Christmas parade for East Lake residents after the chamber of commerce refused to add a black Santa Claus to its parade.

'Courtesy' Membership

The chapter was defunct until about two years ago, when the Rev. Nathaniel Sims, pastor of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Dade City, resurrected it.

"I just wanted to continue my involvement with the organization because it had done so many wonderful things for the country," said Sims, who had experience with the NAACP in New York and Hernando County.

"We have about 130 members, but I'm bothered because people take out membership out of courtesy but are not taking initiative to help do the work."

Although the membership has grown, the group is not a force in the community. Except for holding monthly meetings, banquets and a few fundraisers, the organization has done nothing to establish itself as an agitator for justice or an advocate for civil rights.

"Activist and advocacy organizations such as the NAACP must generate activities that excite the people to want to get involved," Marge Arnade said.

The NAACP needs to get involved with community organizing, training people to serve on its committees and on community boards. It needs to monitor who gets appointed to the boards of local nonprofit organizations, corporations and school advisory groups. It needs to be a watchdog over the criminal justice system, making sure people are treated fairly, and over the schools, monitoring graduation rates, placement in Advanced Placement classes and hiring practices. And the NAACP is needed to make sure hiring at local governments and companies is fair.

The NAACP is as relevant today as it was 100 years ago, when the world's oldest civil rights organization formed. America is 100 times better off because of the NAACP, but its past will not be a justification for the organization getting a free pass on its 100th birthday. There is work to be done and capable people to do the job. It is time to get busy and stop making excuses. Arnade and Pressley did not make excuses; they saw what was wrong and took action.

To suggest a story idea, e-mail idasukile@yahoo.com.

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