Guess who's coming to the table? The Oakland NAACP

New Crisis, The, Mar/Apr 2001

Shannon Reeves, the 32-year-old president of the NAACP Oakland (Calif.) Branch also sits on the California Republican Party's board. His politics are simply an extension of his work with the Oakland NAACP, he told crisis.

"My objective is to bring my community's agenda to the table," he says. "Whether there's a Democrat or Republican president, it's always a struggle."

Reeves has been engaged in the NAACP's struggle for civil rights since 1981. He began at 13 in his youth council, then went on to serve on the national board of directors and headed NAACP Region I. The presidency of the Oakland Branch is his 11th NAACP position.

Organized in 1950, the Oakland Branch and its 4,000 members live and work in an area with a turbulent racial history.

As the branch works to bring its agenda to the table, it often finds that many other African Americans are already there.

"For the last 20 years, we've had African-American mayors [and] school superintendents," Reeves told Crisis.

This does not mean the Oakland NAACP was any less vigilant. "We chose to focus on accountability," says Reeves.

City officials of all colors are monitored by the Oakland Branch to ensure that their actions protect the rights of its constituents.

The branch brings its issues to the table of local politics through meetings and dialogue with government officials and law enforcement agents. Legal clinics are held to allow Oakland residents to voice and act on civil rights complaints.

Some of the branch's strongest efforts have been in local education. Forty percent of branch members are between ages 1845, making Oakland a very young and energetic branch. Their drive empowers their efforts to improve schools. A capital campaign is under way to renovate Castlemont High School, The branch also hopes to raise $500,000 to begin a back-toschool/stay-in-school program.

The branch's Health Advisory Committee has been successful in raising awareness of health issues, working with the Ethnic Health Institution. The branch also received a grant from Kaiser Permanente to launch a health initiative.

The branch recently devised another sure-fire way to bring its message to the table. It recently signed a contract with a black-owned television station to broadcast its monthly general meetings to a viewing audience of 100,000.

Oakland's work has won regional recognition, and, most important, new members are eager to participate in its work. Their polished and professional advancement of civil rights has managed to "get people excited about the NAACP," as Reeves puts it. over the past five years the Oakland Branch has topped branches not only in California but also in the Western region in membership drives.

"The objective is the people," Reeves says. As the Oakland Branch continues to reach out to the people of Oakland with one hand and pull a chair up to the table of local politics and education with the other, that focus rings loud and clear.