Branch President’s message at the 2017 Freedom Fund Banquet

Greetings!

On behalf of the Albemarle- Charlottesville NAACP officers and members, we are pleased to have you join us for our annual Freedom Fund Banquet. We hope that your evening is pleasant and enjoyable.

 January 2017 saw a changing of the guard for the Albemarle-Charlottesville Branch of the NAACP. After twelve years of dedicated service to the organization, Dr. M. Rick Turner made the decision to resign from his position as president of the local branch. We thank him for his twelve years of service and we will continue to build on the progress made during his tenure – while encouraging a productive vision for the future of the branch.

For over a century the NAACP has been one of the nation’s leading champions of civil rights and social justice; working tirelessly to achieve economic equity, with a commitment to attain equality and justice for all. Dr. King once said,” the arc of the moral universe is long but, it bends towards justice.” Justice, a word that has continued to surface in daily conversations, is being enacted by various vocal means of protests throughout the nation. Just this year members of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Community braced themselves while preparing for visits from members of the Ku Klux Klan and – the organizers of the Unite the Right Rally resulted in a tragic ending involving the loss of life. The Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP countered the Klan rally with a successful peaceful protest rally based on the theme, “Steadfast and Immovable”. Various other community activities were planned to provide alternative choices in lieu of attending the rallies.

The NAACP stands at a pivotal time in history! We find ourselves in a period of unrest as a nation. We seem to be engaged in a struggle to protect the gains that we as a people have made during the last fifty years, especially the right to vote. The NAACP stands ready to challenge efforts to roll back and eliminate policies and programs intended to extend the social safety net to all. Many people in our community and across America would be affected by this injustice. Therefore, the tireless work of the NAACP remains relevant today. As the oldest civil rights organization in the world, we would want to be a significant part of the solution as we remain dedicated and committed to the mission of the organization: to ensure the Political, Educational, Social and Economic Equality of Rights of All Persons and to Eliminate Racial Hatred and Racial Discrimination. We remain steadfast in our resolve and immovable from our objective.

Yours in the Struggle,

Janette Boyd Martin, President               
Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP 

Janette Boyd Martin, President of the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP