NAACP Symbolically Buries N-Word

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond addresses the civil rights organization's annual convention in Detroit, Sunday, July 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) (Paul Sancya - AP)

"I've never used the N-word and I've recorded over 150 rap songs. I've never used profanity. It's possible you can use hip-hop and not offend anyone."

The Rev. Wendell Anthony, pastor of Detroit's Fellowship Chapel and member of the NAACP national board of directors, said the efforts were not an attack on young people or hip-hop.

He said they were a commentary on the culture the genre has produced.

"We're not thugs. We're not gangstas," Anthony told the crowd. "All of us has been guilty of this word. It's upon all of us to now kill this word."

The NAACP has been criticized with being out of touch with young blacks, but Tiffany Tilley said the organization is moving in the right direction.

"This is a great start," the 30-year-old Detroit resident said. "We need to continue to change the mentality of our people. It may take a generation, but it's definitely the movement we have to take."

The NAACP held a symbolic funeral in Detroit in 1944 for Jim Crow, the systematic, mostly Southern practice of discrimination against and segregation of blacks from the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction into the mid-20th century.

The organization's 98th annual national convention ends Thursday.