Chattanooga NAACP, building a bridge to the future

"I'm a committed NAACPer."

It's one of the first things Eddie F. Holmes will tell you about himself, and with good reason. Holmes has spent more than 10 ears working with the Chattanooga/Hamilton County NAACP in Tennessee as a member of its executive committee, vice president and president, a position he has held for five years.

"I care about people," Holmes says of his continued work with the branch, "and I didn't see any other organization raising their level. I want brothers and sisters to have what I have."

And Holmes has a lot of brothers and sisters to consider. His branch encompasses the fourth-largest city in Tennessee as well as its rural surrounding county. Much of the Chattanooga/Hamilton County branch's current efforts concern redistricting, and Holmes wants to make sure members of the community understand the impact of redrawing electoral districts.

"Redistricting affects who you can vote for," he explains. "In order to elect a person you think can represent you, some boundaries have to be established.

Without [boundaries], you can't elect someone who has your interests at heart."

The branch has embarked on a public-information campaign designed to provide the people of Chattanooga and Hamilton County with recent Census figures and other data necessary to understand and have a voice in redistricting decisions.

The branch is also involved in issue! related to police community relations. In 1997, the national NAACP teamed with Allstate Insurance to produce a pamphlet, "The Law and You," which provides police interaction guidelines for teens and young adults. The Chattanooga/Hamilton County branch has placed its share of the 300,000 copies that were distributed in the first half of 2001, in local schools and juvenile courts. Peter Cooper, president of the Chattanooga Community Foundation, recalls that he was drawn to the pamphlet program because "it seemed to me like a straightforward project to save teenagers an awful lot of discomfort and trouble with the law. It was a huge investment in education with outcomes. And I like outcomes."

Distribution of the pamphlet hasn't been the branch's only involvement with local youth. The Chattanooga/Hamilton County branch has had an active presence in public education through partnerships with three Chattanooga schools: Barger Academy of Fine Arts, Orchard Knob Middle School and Howard School of Academics and Technology. For nearly five years, the branch has attended education workshops, staffed school events, sponsored after-school programs and provided school supplies. In fact, Barger Academy Assistant Principal Laurel Buttram says it's thanks to the local NAACP that "there's a calculator for every student in this building, from kindergarten to Grade 5."

"We're very lucky," says Buttram, who helps organize the branch's activities in all three schools. "We have a good chapter here. They're for education, for doing the right thing, and the impact is everywhere. It's exciting!"

The branch has much more in store for Chattanooga and Hamilton County. "What we do now is a bridge to what we're going to do in the future," says Holmes. Future activities include an appreciation reception for local branch volunteers, an Emancipation

Proclamation celebration on Jan. I and tributes surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

It's all part of the branch's effort to establish "a track record to say we're viable and relevant and can produce," Holmes says. And from the looks of things, the Chattanooga/Hamilton County branch is right on track.

- Frankie J. Petrosino

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Nov/Dec 2001
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