NAACP plans rebirth in Las Vegas

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2002 | 11:09 a.m.

The NAACP will be trying to revive its Las Vegas area branch with December elections, an official from the civil rights group said.

The announcement comes nearly two years after the national office of the 93-year-old organization disbanded its local branch due to ongoing internal disputes over election results.

It also places the civil rights group in a position to face what local and national observers say are violations of civil rights being committed in the Las Vegas Valley on a par with what was seen in the South decades ago.

These violations, they say, have been the fuel for a coalition of teens to seniors that has been meeting to lay out the organization's rebirth in recent months.

"I would say if any city in America needs a branch of the NAACP, Las Vegas would be one of them," said Frank L. Berry, a 36-year veteran of the organization and its western regional director.

The western office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, based in Los Angeles, has been receiving civil rights complaints from the Las Vegas area since the local branch was disbanded in April 2001, Berry said.

"We're getting the kinds of employee discrimination, police misconduct and housing discrimination complaints we saw in the South in the '60s," he said.

"The community has a great need ... (and) many people have expressed a desire to have a branch again."

Kevin Tate, who has overseen the branch's rebirth for nearly two years, said the western office has received about 30 complaints a month during this period -- a high number for the valley's population.

"For a city of this size -- a small to medium-sized branch -- they get a big city branch's number of complaints," he said.

Nominations will be accepted until Nov. 23 for the new branch's leadership, including president, first and second vice presidents and treasurer. Elections will be held Dec. 21, training of the new officers will take place in January and the organization's national leaders will charter the new branch at its February board meeting, Tate said.

As for the internal squabbles that led to the branch's split, Tate said he was optimistic that a year of meetings with long-term members and oversight from national leadership would pay off.

"There are no guarantees in life, and it depends on the Las Vegas community. But people that have come forth ... have interest in civil rights and not grandstanding or personal gain," he said.

During this period the organization has also met with local Hispanic and Jewish organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Jewish Federation.

"We believe there are many issues we can work on together," Meyer L. Bodoff, executive vice president for the Jewish Federation, said.

Tate said that one challenge that the civil rights organization faces is working in a transient community.

"(This) ... makes our work harder, with new arrivals who may be retirees and may be somewhat disconnected or don't get involved in community-based organizations, or haven't yet."

But Berry said that the problems faced by blacks and other minorities locally will outweigh other factors.

"Most likely there will be a line of people waiting to get the help they need," he said.

Harriet Trudell, 70, has been an NAACP member for 25 years and remembers marching for the integration of Las Vegas schools when current Gov. Kenny Guinn was superintendent of the schools, in the 1960s. She was also one of two white people on the 17-member committee charged with planning the organization's new branch.

"I'm really kind of excited by this," she said. "Most of these people in the organization now were kids when I started."