September | 2013 | thebrockreport

Monthly Archives: September 2013

NAACP and Gilead Sciences Announce Commitment to Action at Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting to Expand Faith-Based HIV/AIDS Program

Posted on 09/25/2013 | Leave a comment

Program to Train Black Church Leaders in 30 U.S. Cities to Educate Parishioners on HIV Screening, Treatment and Prevention

(New York City) – Today, onstage at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, the NAACP and its partner, Gilead Sciences, announced a joint CGI Commitment to Action to enlist faith leaders as change agents to address the disparate impact of HIV/AIDS on the African American community. Over the next five years, this unique partnership will expand its pilot program, The Black Church and HIV: The Social Justice Imperative, to reach the 30 cities that account for nearly two-thirds of the nation’s HIV epidemic.

“The Black Church and the NAACP have been partners in the struggle for social justice for more than a century. Today, our fight is against a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic that disproportionately impacts the lives of African Americans,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors. “For years, many felt that a discussion about HIV/AIDS had no place in African American houses of worship. However, the Black Church remains the cornerstone of our community and must be a critical voice and partner in helping to combat the HIV crisis.”
Video of the CGI presentation

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Women of the NAACP: Exemplars of Achievement

Posted on 09/16/2013 | Leave a comment

Women have served an integral role in the history of the NAACP, and they continue to play a vital role today.

The story of the NAACP begins with a woman. On February 12, 1909, a white journalist and woman’s suffragist named Mary White Ovington joined with two other activists to call for a national conference on the civil and political rights of African-Americans. The ensuing conference was called the National Negro Committee, and it was soon renamed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Ovington served as the third chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors from 1919-1934 – the highest position in the NAACP — and twice as Executive Secretary — then the highest position on the NAACP staff. She added a woman’s touch to NAACP leadership in its first few seminal decades, helping to build a strong field staff against seemingly insurmountable odds, protest racist depictions in the media like “Birth of a Nation”, and push for anti-lynching legislation.