WS Chronicle

The Winston-Salem Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will be holding elections in November. The process of forming a committee to nominate candidates and decide an election date will start this month.

Our hope is that the organization’s members will look to the future and not the past as the process moves forward.

The election process for the current officials started in earnest in 2014 but proceeded badly.

The originally scheduled election was on Nov. 19, 2014, but incumbent President S. Wayne Patterson called in the N.C. NAACP to oversee the election after candidates were submitted after the nomination process was closed.

Another election was held in January 2015, but results were overturned because ballots were not printed on paper and a number of other violations.

On May 7, 2015, Patterson, a local attorney, announced that he would be withdrawing his name from the ballot.

On May 26, 2015, a new slate of officers were chosen. That’s when the current officers were elected. Some positions had no candidates running.

The organization is linked to the N.C. NAACP Branch, which has been actively challenging repressive laws, mainly voting laws. The state branch and national NAACP have spoken out against injustice recently. The Winston-Salem branch has been speaking out on the lack of a substantial middle school on the east side of the city. What are the challenges ahead? The local chapter needs to identify those challenges and plan to combat them.

We know that the branch will be moving forward without at least one key person. Former Sen. Earline Parmon died in March. She was first vice president of the organization.

However, these times call for others to step up to the plate to help lead the branch. One candidate has already announced his intention to run. The pastor of Exodus Baptist Church, Rev. Alvin Carlisle, announced he will put his name in the hat to become the next president of the local NAACP branch.

We hope that as the local NAACP election process moves forward, that the members will look within themselves to see what they can do to help the organization move forward. The NAACP is such a historic organization. Now is not the time to roll over and play dead. There is too much work to do.