To the Editor:

The Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century brought about real positive change: the end of legalized segregation in education, jobs, housing, public facilities, and private businesses. Further, equal opportunity in voting was enshrined in the Voting Rights Act.

These changes did not come easily, as they were won with blood. Good people bled and died. Good people were brutalized, arrested, and imprisoned.

Today, we see the rollback of many of these rights, especially in voting rights and education. The Supreme Court recently nullified a section of the Voting Rights Act, and immediately our state legislature created impediments to voting. In public education, we’ve seen the steady decline of per student spending by the state government, as well as drastic cuts in textbook funds and teacher assistants. 

Meanwhile, the state is taking our tax dollars away from accountable public schools and giving them to unaccountable for-profit charter schools, including religious schools. The largest recipient of our state tax dollars is a Christian school, the second largest is a Muslim school. 

As the need has arisen, so has the NAACP. While it was founded to fight for the rights of African Americans, it has since expanded its scope to include all those who face injustice whether they be black, white, and beyond.

It is time, again, to stand up to injustice, hatred, fear, indifference, greed and corruption. We The People need to stand together and demand that our state and our nation be returned to us.

With you we can stand together, sing together, march together, write together, eat together, dance together and win together. We need you, and all people of good heart, to come together and make history. This is our time.

Join us at 3 p.m. this Monday, Jan. 18, in Sylva as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We will meet at Bridge Park on the back street of downtown Sylva, or for bad weather, check our website at jacksonncnaacp.org

We will share a meal, sing, and speak. Join us to make this a better community.

Dan Kowal

Communications Chair

Jackson County NAACP