A Tribute to Hazel Nell Dukes

NAACP Youth Leaders pay tribute to Women in the NAACP during Black History Month. This tribute is submitted on behalf of Joshua Turnquests.

An important civil rights activist of the 1960s and 1970s and a campaigner for over 30 years, Hazel Nell Dukes is a leading figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has served as the organization's State president for over two decades. Ms. Dukes built a career in various social service agencies, but she was most successful working for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation (NYCOTB). She worked for the corporation for 25 years before being made its president by New York City Mayor David Dinkins in 1990. Yet Dukes has also received a healthy share of criticism and controversy She left the NYCOTB in 1994.

Hazel Nell Dukes was born on March 17, 1932, in Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter and only child of Edward and Alice Dukes. Dukes was raised in Montgomery and, intending to become a teacher, attended Alabama State Teachers College (now Alabama State University) beginning in 1949. But in 1955 she moved with her parents to New York City and began studying at Nassau Community College while she worked at Macy's department store. Her studies in business administration soon led her into working for governmental organizations. In 1966 she became the first black American to work for the Nassau County Attorney's Office and later worked for the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission (EOC) as a community organizer. There she was responsible for organizing day care and schooling for poor children, as well as for coordinating transportation for people unable to attend college or find work because they were unable to travel. Throughout her life Dukes has shown a deep commitment to the importance of education and worked hard in the 1960s to improve the educational chances of many people in deprived areas; Dukes herself did not finally graduate with a bachelor's degree from Adelphi University until 1978.

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The Voting Rights Act is Our Problem

by Mandla Deskins--Program Associate, Voting Rights

In June (2013) the Supreme Court overturned a key portion of the VRA, rendering Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act toothless until Section 4 is reinstated by congress.

Understandably, some of us feel like this is less pressing in a time when guns, mass incarceration, out of reach education, and even faulty policies that incentivize murder based on race, are chipping away at our livelihoods. But we couldn’t be more wrong.  

Watch this video discussing the Supreme Court Decisions of June 2013.

We must remember that Florida’s elected officials passed stand your ground legislation, that elected officials fought against gun control, and that elected officials allowed our colleges to be defunded. Without the ability to elect officials that can speak on our behalf, we have no voice in the problems or solutions plaguing us the most. And without the VRA being fully operational, we lose a crucial voter protection operation that was able to block harmful legislation, targeting specific groups and subsequently younger generations, since its inception in 1965.

Heading into the 2014 midterm election year our vote is and will remain under attack. We should be clear that more than 80 voter suppression bills were introduced last year, and all have a component targeting our voice. The Voting Rights Act is the single most important protection for our voices and our nation. We must make sure congress takes concrete steps to fix it.

Join the Campaign and let your voices be heard!

NAACP Youth and College, today I challenge college chapters from across the nation to organize and mobilize on behalf of the VRA and Section 4.

To find out more about the VRA campaign and the Y/C voting rights campaign, please visit the online hub for NAACP Youth & College Voting Rights at the link below. You will find social media resources, updates, materials and more!

Apply for NAACP Youth and College Campus Voting Rights Advocacy Grant!

We are aware that budgets are tight and advocacy can cost, so we will be offering $250 mini-grants to help 12 creative, organized and ambitious NAACP College chapters across the nation organize and act. DEADLINE EXTENDED to 1/30!

To apply, or get more information about the grant, please click the link below to download the request for proposal form. Please remember that decisions will be made on a variety of factors— including, creativeness, intercampus partnerships, and strength of proposal— so make it good!

Click here to apply for the NAACP Youth and College Campus Action Grant.

My Right, My Vote

by Mandla Deskins, Program Associates--Voting Rights

2013 has been a rough year for youth. Our peers are being gunned down, their killers allowed to walk free, our employment prospects in high school and just out of college are bleak, and some of our families are still slogging through a slow recovery from the 2008 recession.

But one issue, one that could dictate the role we play in our governance, in the key issues of our day, and in our future, has been largely overlooked.

That issue is our right to vote. The right of young people, especially young people of color and those in the lower and middle income brackets, has been under attack this year— with more than 80 voter suppression bills introduced, several in the last few weeks, and Section 4 of the VRA overturned.

Apply for NAACP Youth and College Campus Voting Rights Advocacy Grant! We are aware that budgets are tight and advocacy can cost, so we will be offering $250 mini-grants to help 12 creative, organized and ambitious NAACP College chapters across the nation organize and act.

To apply, or get more information, download the request for proposal form today. Please remember that decisions will be made on a variety of factors— including, creativeness, intercampus partnerships, and strength of proposal— so make it good!

We are at a crossroads.

As the most vicious attempt to silence us since the 1960s is ongoing, the fight to protect the vote has to be carried with the same fervor civil rights activists once possessed.

Unfortunately, too many of us think of voting rights as this issue of the past. As a part of history that we should remember and a legacy that we live on, but not something that we need to worry about in our present day.

2013 is our 1963, and it is time that we take our voices back, so we can speak on the issues that are hurting our generations the most.

We must remember that Florida’s elected officials passed stand your ground legislation, that elected officials fought against gun control, and that elected officials allowed our colleges to be defunded.

Without the ability to elect officials that can speak on our behalf, we have no voice in the problems or solutions plaguing us the most.

Here is the challenge: For the next two months, headed into2014, take the message of My Right, My Vote to your peers, to you community, to your college, and make sure that you fight for your right to be a part of the American democracy together.

To apply for the NAACP Youth and College Campus Action Grant, please click here.