NAACP General Membership meeting LIVE!

This is coming to you as a live report from the Cathedral Church of God in Christ, at the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr Drive and Lamontier Ave.

I am actually in one of the Church’s ancillary buildings, which serves during the week as the home of Woodland Academy, a charter school operated by White Hat Management.

This is the first real meeting of the general membership in several years, occasioned by the election of new officers of the local chapter.

Right now there are about eighty members in the room, including a handful of the organization's governing body, its Executive Committee. The purpose of the meeting is to select a Nominating Committee that will recommend a slate of sixteen to thirty-two officers and executive committee members. 

A substantial number of those in attendance are apparently members of Greater Abysinnia Baptist Church, led by the redoubtable Rev. Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness. Caviness is running a determined campaign to elect Hilton Smith, a vice president of Turner Construction as well as an assistant pastor at Greater Abysinnia.

Elected to the Nominating Committee thus far: former Congressman Louis Stokes.

In a bit of a surprise, the nomination of long time NAACP officer Eugene Jordan, DDS was defeated 28-17. Most of the opposition came from the Caviness-Smith faction.

Right now the meeting is bogged down over procedural squabbles about  the process for how the balance of the committee should be conducted.

A few minutes ago, the procedural issue was resolved when a motion passed to start over.

7:08PM
Thirteen people have been nominated: Louis Stokes, Darnell Brewer, Sara Harper, Jackie Caviness Tucker, Mary Hill, Eugene Jordan, Tyrone Bolden, Michael Nelson, Wendell Turner, Pippa Carter, Kyle Earley, Michelle Felder, Ron Kisner, and Sheila Wright.

7:34PM
As the votes are being tallied, president James Hardiman is leading a discussion on capital punishment and its discriminatory application against people of color. Attorney Michael Nelson urged that pressure be applied to Cleveland City Council for the passage of an ordinance installing cameras in  all police cruisers. He said Cleveland is the only large city in the State that does not mandate cruiser cameras.

Hardiman has just announced that this is the largest meeting of the branch in about six years. 

7:58PM
Community activist Gerald Henley urged Cleveland voters to support the November school levy, saying that some classrooms at A. J. Rickoff School  — where he said his wife teaches — on Cleveland's east side have fifty children.


8:08PM
Interim executive director Arlene Anderson announced the results of the voting. In descending order of most votes received: Louis Stokes, Sara Harper, tyrone Bolden, Jackie Caviness Tucker, Mary Hills, Pippa Carter, and Wendell Turner. The current membership status of Bolden, Hills and Carter is in doubt, subject to replacement by in order by Eugene Jordan, Michael Nelson and Ronald Kisner.

The next general membership meeting will be October 16 at a location to be announced.

Monday Morning Humor

These comments were reportedly made by South Carolina Troopers as captured on their car videos: 

1. "You know, stop lights don't come any redder than the one you just went through." 

2. "Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch after you wear them a while." 

3. "If you take your hands off the car, I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

4. "If you run, you'll only go to jail tired." 

5. "Can you run faster than 1200 feet per second? Because that's the speed of the bullet that'll be chasing you."

6. "You don't know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?" 

7. "Yes, sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I'm the shift supervisor?" 

8. "Warning! You want a warning? O.K, I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket." 

9. "The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?" 

10. "Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy and corn dogs and step in monkey poop." 

11. "Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven." 

12. "In God we trust; all others we run through NCIC." ( National Crime Information Center ) 

13. "Just how big were those 'two beers' you say you had?" 

14. "No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we can." 

15. "I'm glad to hear that the Chief (of Police) is a personal friend of yours. So you know someone who can post your bail." 

16. "You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't. Sign here."