The NAACP 116th National Convention started last week in Charlotte, NC, amidst the Trump MAGA onslaught against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, along with Black and brown immigrants getting kidnapped by masked ICE agents and disappearing into U.S. concentration camps and black ops prisons in other countries.
The Convention slogan, The Fierce Urgency of Now, is a call to action issued against the backdrop of centuries during which Black people have been resisting attempts to deny their humanity and to enslave them.
Slavery can take many forms, including chattel slavery, carceral slavery, and wage slavery. All forms have one thing in common, the denial of the human dignity of the enslaved person and the super-exploitation of the enslaved person’s labor.
The Trump MAGA policies and actions, both economic and via ICE raids in the streets, represent a violent attack against the working and oppressed peoples in the United States and globally, through tariffs and military threats. The NAACP is challenging the direction that the country is going in.
Why Trump was not invited
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, when declining for the first time in 116 years to invite the sitting President (Trump) to address the convention, said, “But right now, it’s clear — Donald Trump is attacking our democracy and our civil rights. He believes more in the fascist playbook than in the U.S. Constitution. This playbook is radical and un-American. The president has signed unconstitutional executive orders to oppress voters and undo federal civil rights protections; he has illegally turned the military on our communities, and he continually undermines every pillar of our democracy to make himself more powerful and to personally benefit from the U.S. government.”
The Black community understood Trump’s racist agenda, with 92% of Black women voting against him. The vicious blitzkrieg of hate that Trump has unleashed since his second election, pre-planned in Project 2025 and Project Esther, has not been seen before in the lifetime of most people in the United States.
However, it is not new. In 1921, in a rehearsal for the Trump fascist agenda and ICE attacks, anti-immigrant fever led to the execution by electric chair of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants unjustly “legally” lynched.
That same year, 1921, the Tulsa race massacre took place. Between May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents, some of whom were appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses. 800 people were admitted to the hospital. 35 blocks of Tulsa were destroyed.
Some 6,000 Black residents were interned in a concentration camp. Estimates suggest 300 people died at the hands of the white mob killers. Black people, immigrants, workers, and organizers have been enduring violent oppression since the founding of this country. Undoubtedly a beautiful country, it has been cursed, however, by capitalism, exploitation, the oppression of women and the LGBTQ+ and Asian communities, and enslavement of Black and brown folks.
President Derrick Johnson said, “This administration does not respect the Constitution or the rule of law. It would be a waste of our time and energy to give a platform to fascism, which would be unacceptable.” 
In fact, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to dismantle the wins of the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. For example, the MAGA administration is effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act. Designed to enforce the voting rights protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racially oppressed peoples throughout the country, especially in the South.
The Trump administration won the 2024 election by 1.5%—nearly losing to Kamala Harris. Elon Musk’s contribution to the Trump campaign of over $250 million bought him a seat in the Oval Office and facilitated the ongoing undemocratic attack on workers under the guise of cutting costs and increasing efficiency.
There is no Trump mandate. This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. There is no Trump mandate to implement the heinous distortions of justice and humanity that the MAGA/Project2025 program imposes.
The NAACP convention has been clearly focused on the struggle to meet the subsistence needs of all African American people. Dawn Nelson, a first-time attendee to the Convention from Chicago, said she had been “looking forward to the Convention. It’s a new experience. With the state of what the world is like now and what it looks like for people who look like me [Black people], I want to see how we’re going to rally together and what our plans are for next steps, and how we can navigate together through this tumultuous time we’re in. I think that protests always help. Closed mouths don’t get fed. If you stay silent, that’s actually permission for people to continue to mistreat you. So your voice should be loud, it should be heard.”
Melissa Jones, another first-time attendee, said, “There are so many costs, so many tears” arising from the political context in which African Americans are living their lives today. Challenges she identified included “educating our youth. I’m so glad to see all the youth participating today and sharing their truth and confidence.
Wants more education of youth
“I want to see the youth educated on a different political stance, on the hardships that grandparents and great-grandparents are suffering now. And their parents, too. Racism has not gone away in this country, and it’s still taking a toll, in my view, on Black families.” Talking about the resistance that is forming against the Trump/MAGA agenda, Jones said that marches are great, but her “concern is what you’re going to do after the march. That is where I see gaps. We rally when the topic is hot, but when it dies and is old, I don’t see the same support for my people. I do feel we have things to do to fix ourselves.”
The Convention has had different sessions during each day. The “Equitable Healthcare and Health Outcomes” session today, with Dr. Michelle Gourdine, Dr. Jamila Perritt, and Deborah Wafer, tackled the question of the lack of good health care outcomes for Black and brown people.
Dr. Gourdine is the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of CVS CareMark. Dr. Perritt is President and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH), an activist organization. Deborah Wafer is Executive Director, U.S. Virology, Community Engagement and Patient Advocacy, Gilead.
Among the issues identified by all were healthcare costs, community and social support, chronic illness management, stress and mental health management, spirituality and faith, food and nutrition, environment and neighborhood, and discrimination and representation. Fundamental issues of affordability and access were discussed.
Dr. Gourdine made clear that the current patent laws reinforce the super-high prices for pharmacy products in the United States, compared to the same products in other countries. Ms. Wafer highlighted the ongoing struggle for healthcare for folks with chronic illnesses like HIV. She made the point that HIV is not a “gay” disease, that one can’t tell by looking at someone if they have HIV, and that HIV can, in many cases, be managed so people can live long lives. Affordability remains an issue.
Dr. Perritt is an organizer and practicing clinical gynecologist. Her organization, PRH, is a network of doctors organizing and mobilizing other medical providers to advance access to comprehensive reproductive health care for the communities we serve. “A lot of that work,” she says, “happens in the policy space. So when we see policies like the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that was recently passed, we know that it is our obligation to really advocate for a more expansive vision of what health and well-being look like. There are a number of things, terrible things, that are happening and playing out in this bill, including cuts to Medicaid, decreases in SNAP benefits, increasing funding for ICE and carceral systems.”
The impact on the African-American community of the Trump/MAGA agenda is indefensible and devastating. Cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and many other problems, Dr. Perritt mentioned, “will disproportionately impact communities of color, Black people, especially.
“My work in reproductive health means I focus on Black women and birthing people more than any other community because I understand that if Black women are healthy, if Black birthing people have access to care, then our communities are healthy. And so when we look at legislation that deliberately targets communities of color, and this bill does exactly that, I want to be really clear about what we’re talking about.
“This [bill] is not about saving money. This is not about cutting costs. This is about determining who actually has the right to be well. And they have said very clearly, we don’t care about Black and brown people. We don’t care about poor people, we don’t care about young people. We don’t care about gender expansive folks. And they are specifically targeted in legislation like this. We have to understand that these elected officials work for us. Unless and until we are willing to take them to task for the harm that they’re causing, then we will continue to see these inequitable outcomes.”
In speaking about the work to be done, Dr. Perritt said, “The work that we do at Physicians for Reproductive Health is organizing work. We know that doctors have power. We know that doctors hold privileges. And the question is, if you organize those folks at the grassroots tops in partnership with folks in the grassroots, community-based organizations, nonprofit, and reproductive justice organizations, that is the only way to bring forth change. It means that we refuse to collude, we refuse to be complicit, and we prioritize the health and well-being of our patients and our community above all.”
The healthcare discussion illustrated the NAACP’s commitment to the struggle for the subsistence and health needs of the African-American community, which is a vital struggle for everyone to support.
The NAACP rejects Project 2025, saying (in terms of healthcare) that “Project 2025 aims to repeal the Affordable Care Act, reduce Medicaid funding, and eliminate programs aimed at addressing health disparities, which would lead to reduced access to healthcare services and worsening health outcomes for African Americans.”
Leon W. Russell, Chairman, NAACP Board of Directors, said, “If you believe in the promise of this nation, you and I must commit to being all in to the fight against Project 2025.”
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
