NAACP event offers promise, challenge; recognizes leaders

“It was just beautiful,” Carrie White of Gibson said upon conclusion of Friday’s annual freedom banquet with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.

More than 700 people of multiple races, backgrounds and professions gathered to pay tribute to those who contributed to NAACP efforts during the previous year, and were recognized as offering hope for the future.

Among the honored attendees was Laura Harris, owner of Small World Daycare as the Minority Business of the Year. “Oh, my goodness,” Harris said. “I did not expect it. I am just overwhelmed and grateful. I try to be a good example. I love my job and hope to be doing it for a long time to come.”

Harris was recognized for her care and educational training of small children as well as civic and charitable contributions.

Other nominees as minority businesses of the year included Big Mike’s BBQ and Smokehouse, James Academy of Gymnastics, and W.B. Trucking.

Another highlight of the evening was the presentation of $28,000 in college scholarships among 28 graduates of high schools in Terrebonne Parish. It was the largest collection of scholarship awards in the chapter’s history.

The keynote speaker for the evening was NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. Noting the weekend as marking the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America, Jealous asked those in attendance to draw upon the attitudes of Sept. 12, 2001, when, he said, all Americans were drawn together in a spirit of unity seldom experienced in a lifetime.

“It was a day when this country came together across all kinds of lines,” Jealous said. “We recognized a common humanity, common ties of citizens of this great country that bind us together. [It was] a day when it seemed like an entire world supported our country, a day when it felt as though all of us in this country supported all of our neighbors.”

Jealous said that while there have been advancements in the more than 100 years that the NAACP has been in operation, there is still much work to be done. He noted that while minorities have made many gains, he fears at times a core of community values might have been lost along the way. “We got what we fought for, but we lost what we had.”

Jealous admonished those present to not become complacent, but to continue to fight for voting opportunities, educational opportunities and employment opportunities.

“We are here to confront [limitations] head-on,” he said. “We are a human rights movement.”

“I hope the young kids listened to [Jealous],” White said. “The message has not changed much since we were in school in the 1960s. But the children now probably have a better mindset than the children back then because they have better educations than we did. I hope that one day we will be listening to one of them.”

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous tells those in attendance at Friday’s Freedom Banquet in Houma that theirs is a human rights movement that remains pertinent. MIKE NIXON