Trying for a restart

After two years of dormancy, the Iberia Chapter of the NAACP is rekindling its spark for change and equality among the races.

A membership drive and organizational meeting for the chapter will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in West End Park. The public is invited and committee members are requesting every interested person attend.

Geri King-Brown said the group first formed in 2006 but stopped meeting in 2007. However, she said, many members of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have been meeting once a month for the past three months in advance of this week’s resurgence.

“They slacked off on meetings, and we’re bringing it back,” King-Brown said. “Our meetings are going to be every second Thursday from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the West End Community Center at the Martin Luther King Jr. Building. Our main issue is to try and get safety in our area and educate all our people, let them know what is going on and get them to voice their opinion by voting, not violence. Stop the violence. We all want the same thing — equality.”

King-Brown said she also would like to end the stigma that efforts by the NAACP are purely for the black community. She repeatedly stressed those interested in membership for the civil rights organization do not have to be black.

That message is shared by former New Iberia City Councilman and NAACP member Ernest Wilson, who said a local and vocal NAACP chapter would provide a way of communicating with the community.

“I’m not talking about battles or anything like that,” he said. “I’m talking about education programs for youth. We basically don’t have anything. We felt that if we could get together and talk about it and look at the goals and objectives, we can try to form some posture that would foster some communication among the community. This is not particularly a black thing.”

Wilson said organizational meetings have focused on the community and Iberia Parish as a whole, adding a lot of people have issues.

“White families can have issues as relate to landlord/tenant rights or things of that nature,” he said. “We can get into complex issues regarding the lease agreement.”

Wilson and King-Brown said the chapter wants to work in partnership with the school system on the dropout rate.

King-Brown said she has been nominated unopposed as president for the local chapter. She said national records indicate more than 40 NAACP members are already in Iberia Parish.

Those interested can call 364-6494 or 369-9290, or e-mail to gbrown54@bellsouth.net for more information.