PHILADELPHIA — Cornell William Brooks was a bit under the weather on the second day of the 106th Annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Convention. Still, he knew there was little time for him to grow weary, as he moved about the Pennsylvania Convention Center delivering a series of speeches aimed at firing up the base for next year’s presidential election.
“We are giants,” he tells the thousands of NAACP delegates who made the trek to the City of Brotherly Love. “I will not fear the Klan. I will not fear White supremacy. I will not fear the hater. I will not fear the opponents of the NAACP. I will fear no evil. Let us march on. Let us march on until victory is won.”
At the podium, Brooks — a civil rights lawyer and fourth-generation African Methodist Episcopal preacher — was giving the crowd exactly what they had come to the NAACP Convention looking for: a soul-stirring political message, deeply grounded in the rhetoric of Black spirituality.
By the time he finished speaking, the NAACP delegates broke into a sea of shouting. Some started to cry, while others rose from their seats to give their leader a standing ovation.
“Well done,” an elderly lifetime NAACP member tells Brooks right before planting a kiss on his cheek. “You are becoming a fine spokesman for our organization. You are a real race man for our people.”
Taking the national stage
While much of the civil rights community had never heard of Brooks before he was plucked from anonymity to become head of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization last year, he is quickly becoming a household name. And in the process, he is repositioning the NAACP to become a real player in helping to institutionalize civil rights legislation and ultimately help to elect the nation’s next president.
