Is The NAACP Lynching Its Leadership?

On February 26, 2020 I, Clovis Honoré, then President of the NAACP San Diego Branch, received a letter from the National NAACP quoting a section of the NAACP constitution and telling him I was no longer a member, and would be kept out for 3 years before I can reapply for membership.

While I received some static from the NAACP California State Conference about a policy issue, I have never gotten any documentation from the National NAACP, the only one with the authority to take away my membership, according to the NAACP Constitution, explaining why they expelled me for 3 years. It's like I'm the Black kid in school who gets expelled because he's being a 'disruptive' Black kid."

When I joined the San Diego Branch of the NAACP as a volunteer, I thought I was going to be able to fight for what is best for oppressed people and people of color at the local level - here in San Diego.  But apparently the local Branches can only fight for what the State and National NAACP think is best, or you can be summarily removed from the organization without explanation or due process, just for asking for a change in policy - and we followed their procedures. I feel like I've been lynched by the very organization that was founded 111 years ago to stop lynchings."

This appears to stem from a controversy over a resolution democratically approved by the NAACP San Diego Branch and signed by me, as the then President of the Branch.  The resolution went nowhere fast within the NAACP,  but got considerable attention in the media. This didn't sit well with the State NAACP, so they sent a letter to the National NAACP with some vague accusations against 3 NAACP branches and their leadership.  The letter says someone did something, but it doesn't say who did what.

I've been reading "Just Mercy" by Brian Stephenson, and this reminds me of how the Alabama and Mississippi police hid behind their authority to abuse Black citizens. It's pretty shocking.

"If they have a reason to kick me out, all they have to do is say what it is, so the San Diego community I serve can know why. The NAACP owes San Diego at least that. All they've done so far is say I broke the rules', but they won't say how. It's like saying "you broke the law, here is the law you broke and this is your sentence." But where is the due process? Where are my accusers hiding? Where is the list of offenses? Where is the evidence? Even in a lynching they would tell the poor soul what they were accusing him of, even if he didn’t do it.

I've been involved in serving communities of concern in San Diego for more than 20 years. I was appointed to the Executive Committee and elected 1st Vice President and then President of the NAACP - all volunteer positions. People I've never seen in San Diego are deciding what is best for Black and oppressed people in San Diego without ever setting foot here,  and a lot of people want to know why. Even the San Diego Branch of the NAACP doesn't know why. When they posted a statement to that effect on their website, the National NAACP made them take it down. Why? What are they hiding?

I have been a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. For 40 years. Alpha Phi Alpha was founded in 1906 at Cornell University. The NAACP was founded in 1909 with the help of a member of my Fraternity,  W.E.B Dubois. Thurgood Marshall, who argued Brown vs. Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the NAACP,  and later became the first African American Supreme Court Justice,  was an Alpha. Another notable Alpha was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These men and many others would be sorely disappointed with the behavior of the leadership of the nation's oldest and greatest civil rights organization. All that they represented, fought and died for is tainted by the lack of transparency and lack of due process in the way I and other NAACP members and leaders have been treated by our own organization. Someone needs to ask them why."

Clovis Honoré
Past President, NAACP San Diego Branch
Past President, San Diego Black Health Associates
Past Interim Executive Director, United African American Ministerial Action Council
Past Executive Director, San Diego Area Congregations for Change
Social Justice Editor, Indian Voices Newspaper