Black History

NAACP Announces $20m Voter Registration Drive at National Convention in Chicago

GARY CRUSADER — The NAACP announced a $20 million voter registration campaign at its 117th annual convention in Chicago. The campaign aims to register between six and 10 million voters who did not participate in the last two elections.

Published

2 months ago

July 27, 2026

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NAACP Announces $20m Voter Registration Drive at National Convention in Chicago

With just over three months before the midterm elections, the NAACP at its 117th annual convention in Chicago announced an unprecedented $20 million voter registration campaign ahead of the midterm elections.

The announcement kicked off the NAACP’s national convention at McCormick Place where thousands of visitors and delegates participated in workshops and seminars that stressed the organization’s theme of “We the People” and purpose of educating Blacks about their constitutional rights.

Throughout the week-long convention, vendors sold merchandise, media organizations held onsite interviews in “The HUB,” and visitors signed a massive “We the People” mural.

Governor J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson were among the dignitaries who reinforced the NAACP’s message during the convention’s opening plenary.

Black voting rights have been under attack in the last several months when Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida gutted historic Black congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such districts were unconstitutional and were no longer needed in modern times despite protections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, is concerned those decisions will roll back political and economic gains Blacks have made in the last six decades.

NAACP Board Chairman Leon Russell told the opening session that the NAACP would undertake a $20 million voter registration and mobilization drive “to motivate six million to 10 million voters” who did not cast ballots in the last two elections to do so.

As part of the campaign, the NAACP plans to recruit “tens of thousands of volunteers to join the crusade to turn out millions of us this November.”

The plan will target voters in 14 states and 33 congressional districts, with the full list expected to be disclosed later.

“We must move 60 percent or more of all eligible voters to the polls,” Russell said.

The NAACP has a history of leading voter registration drives in Black neighborhoods across America.

In his speech, Pritzker said, “In Washington and across the country, extremists holding high office are working to erase Black history rather than learn from it, to take away voting rights instead of strengthening them, to divide us rather than unite us,” he said.

He added, “These are not simply disagreements over policy. These are challenges to the very idea that democracy belongs to all of us. Challenges to the very idea that we are all created equal.”

Pritzker said the phrase “We the People” reflects America’s ongoing effort to expand equality, noting that the nation’s founding ideals initially excluded enslaved people, women and other groups.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said, “For 117 years this incredible organization has helped bend the arc of history towards justice. And not because progress was inevitable, but because ordinary people made the extraordinary decision to organize, advocate and refuse to accept injustice as the reigning form of governance. That work has never been easy, and today it remains as urgent as it has ever been.

“Across this country we are witnessing wicked efforts to undermine fundamental rights, weaken Democratic institutions, and to turn neighbors against one another.

“We see attempts to silence the truth and erase our history and convince people that somehow division is stronger than solidarity. But history has taught us something very different. Every time people have been told to accept injustice, they have risen together to reject it. “

During Trump’s second term in office, the NAACP has filed more than 70 lawsuits to stop his grasping and often unconstitutional moves to grab total power.

Pritzker said “Illinois has been at the forefront of the struggle for freedom and equality” ever since Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a non-white, was the first permanent resident of what is now Chicago, Pritzker noted.

Pritzker also said Illinois also gave the nation the crusading African American journalist Ida B. Wells, and it elected more African American members of Congress than any other state. He said Illinois gave the nation the late civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and “a young community organizer” who eventually went from Chicago to the White House, Barack Obama.

“But such progress is not inevitable,” the governor warned. “It requires people willing to sacrifice. None of this is by accident. It is because Black America shows up, reminding us of the painful part of our history while giving us hope for the future.”

Based on reporting by Gary Crusader.

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Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

Published

3 days ago

September 7, 2026

Oakland Post

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Black History

Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions

As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.

Published

1 week ago

August 30, 2026

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Jackie Wright of Wright Enterprises. Photo courtesy of Wright Enterprises.

By Carla Thomas

Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.

As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.

Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.

The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.

“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.

That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.

“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.

Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.

“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.

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Black History

BOOK REVIEW: Every Inch of a Lady

“Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, and honeyed in Harlem” in 1937, Audrey Smaltz was a force to be reckoned with almost from the time she could walk. Her parents imbued confidence in her; they nurtured her creativity and sent her to charm school, but they never allowed her to create a stir.

Published

1 week ago

August 30, 2026

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Audrey Smaltz' latest book "Every Inch a Lady" with Alina Mitchell, is a colorful autobiographical story following a young Black model's pursuit to become a fashion designer in New York City during the pre-Civil Rights era.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell, foreword by Michael Kors, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Amistad, SRP: $27.99, Page Count: 256 Pages, Snaps, zippers, buttons, ties.

Toss that garment on, pull it up, wrap it around; you know what you like and how to wear it. The color is perfect for your skin tone, and the fabric enhances your figure. Yep, you always look your best and, as in the new book “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell), that best is fabulous.

“That,” says Smaltz, “is not what ladies did.”

By the time she was a teenager, Smaltz was modeling for New York City designers. Shortly thereafter, she started working for a married man with whom she had an affair, and whom she loved very much. She broke up with him, attended college, and worked a series of jobs that taught her about fashion and jobs that didn’t seem to fit her. An ill-fated marriage took her to Chicago, where she ultimately landed a position that sent her to work in Ebony magazine’s New York office.

Working at Ebony was a career-changer, in a way. Smaltz traveled the world and learned more about fashion, but she didn’t exactly get along with her boss.

Finally, seizing an opportunity, Smaltz decided to launch her own company, Audrey Smaltz, Inc., a “fashion production business,” but she couldn’t get any designers to take a chance on her. Undaunted, she reorganized, re-branded, hit the streets, and knocked on doors until she finally found one client, which led to many others.

Through it all, her personal life was a whirlwind. She dated “more men than you can shake a book at,” settling down occasionally, briefly. Fashion had always been her first love, but she accidentally found real love, “the love of a woman,” at a leadership course…

There’s an old saying that writers need to add lots of “color” into their stories. Read a little of “Every Inch a Lady,” and you’ll notice immediately that author Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell) quite literally takes that to heart by mentioning nearly every color of the spectrum here. Hmm.

That oddity aside, Smaltz is a wonderfully lively storyteller, speaking with the energy of a woman much younger to the heart of anyone who loves fashion. That glee extends to collectors of vintage clothing, who will be delighted to read about the industry long ago and the way things worked then. Smaltz says she experienced racism, which is not unusual for pre-Civil Rights America, but doors were surprisingly closed for other reasons that will astound anyone who’s savvy about the fashion industry, even today.

There’s quite a bit of name-dropping in this book, but most of it belongs in the anecdotes, so you likely won’t mind. If you’re a fashionista, too, find “Every Inch a Lady,” and snap it up.