The NAACP has cited the aging Black population that fought for civil rights during the 1960s and their failures to attract a 35 and younger crowd. While the group certainly makes valid points the bigger picture may argue that whatever membership drives are employed, there is little that can be done to salvage the organization.

It is your author’s opinion that Black America has achieved the goals set forth by NAACP founder WEB Dubois in 1909. The press has labeled the NAACP, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan as representing the current Black civil rights leadership. Strangely enough not one of these figures or their groups acknowledged the growth in Black owned businesses experienced over the last ten years. According to the US Census Black owned businesses jumped an astounding 47% from 1997-2002. The reader can read a critique at what the press dubbed Black leadership focused on during this remarkable announcement of economic achievement.

According to the Brookings Institution, Black economic prosperity actually began during World War II when plants based in the mid west and northeast experienced a shortage of labor. The blue collar workers, mainly White men, were being drafted. Their jobs would soon be filled by Black men. By 1960 only one out seven Black men were employed as farm labor, while a quarter of Black men held white collar or skilled labor positions. Currently about 30% of Black men and 60% of Black women are employed in white collar jobs. Black middle class income rose 40% from 1940 to 1970. There has been a concern announced by some that the Black middle-class in America has more recently experienced stagnant earnings growth. Your author also mitigates this statement by merely watching the Democrat party machine regularly drumbeat that wages and salaries in America for all races and sexes has been stymied. This is to say that any new news be it valid or otherwise as it relates to earnings is not exclusively a Black America issue.

As the Black middle class grew the need, at least by what your author can surmise, for Black civil rights became less and less. Is it not true that figures such as Jesse Jackson need enough disenfranchised Black supporters or those that choose to live along the poverty line to maintain such status in order for him to hold a television audience? In other words if every Black American achieved the American dream, would there be a need for the likes of Jackson and others? Jesse Jackson quite possibly took note of this scenario and attempted to thrust himself on a global crowd when he made such noteworthy visits to Cuba and past meetings with former Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Mexico’s Vicente Fox.

Whether the NAACP and other so called Black leaders will admit it or not they became tools of the left. As their core base went on ahead and forged their own prosperity, leaving this leadership group behind. In 2000 the NAACP’s National Voter Fund ran a critical ad against George W. Bush. The advertisement cited the dragging death of Texas black man James Byrd later referencing that, while governor of Texas, Bush refused to sign hate bill legislation. Of course there is no proof that hate crime prosecution does anything to prevent heinous acts from occurring but can only be assured to bog down courts. In 2006 President Bush and the group finally mended fences.

Following the embarrassing acts displayed by former Georgia Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in March 2006 where she attacked a police officer when asked to produce identification upon entering a chamber of the US House of Representatives, her Black middle class constituency looked past her allegations that she was being prejudiced and voted her out during the 2006 Democrat nomination, The incumbent McKinney would lose to Dekalb County Commissioner Hank Johnson.  During these events McKinney was heard on CNN praising the leaders of both Cuba and Venezuela, following her loss McKinney supporters referred to Johnson as an ‘Uncle Tom’ and that media was ‘controlled by Jews’. It should be noted that Johnson is a product of the Black middle class and is expected to be a shoe in this November.

Economic prosperity and groups that initially form in hopes that some distinct group achieves this success is not a new concept. The Sicilian mafia and Italy’s Camorra, both well known criminal groups, were thought to have originally been rooted in protecting farmers and the state of Italy. As time went on their need became less and less and the regular criminal enterprises formed. The same can be said for Ireland’s unification movement and the eventual legacy of the IRA. Your author enjoyed reading several editorials recently from Canada’s Globe & Mail and The National Post newspapers that admitted the French independence movement in Quebec has all but been forgotten about. The proponents of this cause readily admit that Canada’s surge in economic prosperity is a direct reason that caused the movement to die to on the vine.

A society or at least members of society must move forward in order to advance. One cannot cling to the past while expecting to enjoy the present much less the future. Will the NAACP be able to reverse the trend in their membership? Not likely given history and what we know. Will American society and specifically Black America be better for it? Most definitely.