Committees
The work of the NAACP is done by Standing Committees and not in the General Membership meeting.
Committees help plan, implement, and elevate every unit’s work to end race-based discrimination. To document activities and inform the rest of the unit, committee leadership submit regular reports with resolutions and recommendations for action.
Key Initiatives
Economic Sustainability
Every person will have equal opportunity to achieve economic success, sustainability, and financial security.
Education
Every child will receive a free, high quality, equitably-funded, public pre-K and K-12 education followed by diverse opportunities for accessible, affordable vocational or university education.
Health
Everyone will have equal access to affordable, high-quality health care, and racially disparate health outcomes will end
Public Safety and Criminal Justice
Disproportionate incarceration, racially motivated policing
strategies, and racially biased, discriminatory, and mandatory minimum sentencing will end. Incarceration will be greatly reduced and communities will be safer. The death penalty will be abolished at the state and federal level, as well as in the military.
Voting Rights and Political Representation
Every American will have free, open, equal, and protected
access to the vote and fair representation at all levels of the political process. By protecting democracy, enhancing equity, and increasing democratic participation and civic engagement, African Americans will be proportionally elected to political office.
Expanding Youth and Young Adult Engagement
The NAACP is expanding the presence of youth consciousness in every aspect of the Association through significant attention to expanding engagement with key age demographic (1979 and after). Young adult engagement will be key in policy research, development and advocacy on all levels. Innovative approaches are being taken on young adult membership and program engagement.
Programs
Community Partnerships: Sonoma County Black Forum
Funding is provided by the County of Sonoma, through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. The Sonoma County Financial Assistance and Black Therapy Fund programs are administered by Sonoma County Black Forum.
These projects are being supported in whole by federal award number SLFRP0246 awarded to the County of Sonoma by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Know Your Rights in Education: Title VI
The State of Black Health in Sonoma County
The State of Black Housing in Sonoma County
Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)| Rise Together
A little over a year ago (May 17, 2021) BARHII brought all of you together to create a Black Housing Strategy. With the help of all of you we created a two-part strategy.
Part one of our strategy is to establish a regional Black housing funding pool funded principally by the state, with contributions from each of the 9 Bay Area counties. We envision this as a $500m pool for achieving a virtuous development cycle. The fund will invest in three inter-related categories:
Project development to increase housing access for Black families and support Black-led developers to bring “brick and mortar” projects to fruition.
– Organizational capacity building to strengthen the ability of Black-led organizations to deliver projects and services.
– Community planning to envision future projects, especially in parts of the region that are experiencing a growing Black population.
Part two of our strategy was to foster government investment from the ARPA dollars in local projects. Many of you submitted proposals to us that were sent to County Boards of Supervisors in the counties that you are doing your work.
At our last Black HAT meeting on June 22, which a lot of you attended, we celebrated some of the local victories that some of our members had in accessing county ARPA dollars for their various projects.
As for part one of our strategy, it was indicated at out last meeting that our $500m State funding request did not make it into the budget that was sent to Governor Newsome on June 2nd. That was in spite of the fact that the state Legislative Black Caucus put us in their budget priorities, and we were a top 5 budget priority of the Bay Area Caucus.
We informed you that we were holding a virtual Press Conference on the Monday 27th that would be aimed at Governor Newsome and law makers to put Black Housing in the budget.
There were 18 news outlets that attended our press conference yesterday. Our speakers included our Black HAT Champion Assemblymember Lori Wilson, State Senator Scott Wiener. Local elected officials Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, Oakland City Council Member Treva Reid, and Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia.
Five Black HAT members spoke. Those persons included me, D’Mitra Smith, Vice President of Sonoma County NAACP; Pastor Paul Bains, President, We HOPE and Unite Hope Builders; Nuni Kidane, Executive Director of Priority Africa Network; and Tasha Henneman, Chief of Policy & Government Affairs, PRC; Director, Black Leadership Council. BARHII Executive Director Melissa Jones moderated the event.
I have provided the link to the recording, and I have attached the transcript. In addition, I have included an Op-ed that BARHII Executive Director Melissa Jones and SF Foundations Fred Blackwell co-authored.
- The recording is available here with the passcode: 0Q!b8&A+
- The live transcription is attached.
- Op-ed: https://www.calhealthreport.org/2022/05/13/opinion-an-urgent-call-to-address-the-housing-crisis-in-black-communities/