Candidates named for NAACP offices

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2002 | 9:15 a.m.

Plans to revive the Las Vegas area branch of the NAACP took a step forward last weekend as candidates were announced for the Dec. 21 elections for president, secretary and treasurer.

The announcement came from a Saturday meeting to nominate candidates for the organization's first area elections in nearly two years. The national office disbanded the local branch in April 2001 because of internal disputes over election results.

The nominees for treasurer and secretary are Debbie Conway and Claudette Whitson, respectively, both of whom will run unopposed. Conway is a business development manager with Clark County and Whitson directs an adult eduction program for the Clark County School District.

The three nominees for president are all local religious leaders, with experience in the 93-year-old civil rights organization ranging from three to 53 years. The elected president will then choose a vice president, who must be approved by the branch's executive committee.

"It's not unusual for the branch leaders to be religious leaders, because the organization is so closely aligned with the church historically," said Kevin Tate, who has overseen the branch's efforts to regroup for the national organization.

Presidential nominee the Rev. Marion Bennett of Zion Methodist Church in North Las Vegas has tied the church to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for 53 years, 40 of them in Southern Nevada.

"The church and the NAACP ought to be headlights for the African-American people," he said.

This will be his fourth bid for leadership of the organization, for which he has held every office except secretary "and that's because I ain't too good at writing," he said before laughing and adding: "I always say that."

His decades with the organization included bringing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at the Las Vegas Convention Center in 1964, seeing the first black cocktail waitress serve drinks at the Sahara and marching to integrate area schools.

"We got a lot done," the 68-year-old pastor said. "But it's a lifetime battle."

Bennett wants to lead the organization again and says he will focus on education through reading and tutorial projects, as well as getting minorities in positions of leadership.

The Rev. Gary Hunter of the Greater St. James Baptist Church in Las Vegas has been involved with the NAACP for 24 years, including marches boycotting local businesses in Rosedale, Miss., which ended when the Ku Klux Klan chased crowds from the scene.

In his third year in Las Vegas, Hunter, 41, hopes to amend past divisions within the organization by doing more outreach in the community. "If we can reach that goal, then others will follow," he said.

Then, he would work on education, employment and ending gang violence.

The latter is key, he said, to bringing any future to the area's minorities.

"How can we talk about a future work force if half of the work force is going to be dead in 15 years?" he said.

The Rev. Spencer Francis Barrett of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in North Las Vegas has been a member of the NAACP for three years and worked with other civil rights organizations for 20 years.

He said he is "familiar with the issues that affect the community," having spent eight years in the Las Vegas Valley. He was one of the founders of the Interfaith Council for Worker Justice, a local nonprofit, in 2000.

"The Las Vegas area doesn't recognize the validity of the African-American community as much as it could," the 46-year-old Barrett said. As an example, he cited the low numbers of minorities in positions of power in businesses and schools.

According to U.S. Census estimates, there were about 126,500 blacks living in Clark County in 2001, comprising about 9 percent of the population.

Barrett also said he wants to help blacks in the school system and 15-year-olds to 30-year-olds get jobs.

At the same time, he said the NAACP should not be for blacks only.

"It is a coalition of many people that understand the history of racism in America," he said.