Friday, May 22, 2009

In her April 19 contribution to the Outlook feature "10 Things We Should Toss," Jonetta Barras asked: "Why do we even need the NAACP?" Let me count the ways.

Despite her claim that we are "in an age of integration," most African Americans live in segregated communities. The average black child attends a school that is racially segregated and where more than half the students are poor. Blacks make up 13 percent of our nation's population but 40 percent of the prison population, in part because of gross disparities between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession.

In 2001, the average black male worker earned 72 cents to every dollar earned by a white male. African Americans have a lower life expectancy than whites, are more likely to be uninsured and are less likely to be treated aggressively for illnesses. Although the Voting Rights Act is now more than 40 years old, public officials still shamelessly attempt to suppress the African American vote during every election cycle.

The NAACP was founded more than 100 years ago by a group of black and white men committed to racial equality. Today, it has adapted its agenda to address the civil rights issues of our time: unequal education, economic empowerment, criminal justice reform, health-care access and quality of treatment, and civic engagement and voting rights.

I could never have graduated from Stanford University or Harvard Law School or become a tenured professor at Harvard Law School in the absence of the groundbreaking work of the NAACP. Yet, Ms. Barras suggested that the NAACP's focus and tactics are "obsolete" and "anachronistic" and that the only way for it to become relevant is to "adopt the Bill Cosby agenda." Given the abundant evidence of continued inequality -- including the effects of unconscious or implicit bias -- in the United States, I argue that the NAACP is not only very necessary but is placing its emphasis exactly where it belongs: on dismantling structural impediments to full citizenship for African Americans in this country.

CHARLES J. OGLETREE JR.

Executive Director

Charles Hamilton Houston Institute

for Race and Justice

Cambridge, Mass.