NAACP to vote on controversial resolution condemning 'tea party' supporters

Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 13, 2010; 4:09 PM

Members of the NAACP will vote Tuesday on a resolution that condemns what the group calls "explicitly racist behavior" by supporters of the "tea party" movement. 

The resolution, which is expected to pass, pits the civil rights group against the conservative grass-roots movement, which has repeatedly denied allegations of racism. 

NAACP president Benjamin Jealous told members of his group that he wants to put the tea party "on ice." 

The resolution has drawn scorn from some conservatives. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin became the latest to denounce it on Tuesday, tweeting: "I'm busy today so notify me asap when NAACP renders verdict: are liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots racist? Bated breath, waiting . . . " 

The tea party statement is one of many actions the NAACP has taken this week during its annual convention, which kicked off Saturday in Kansas City, Mo. The group has also requested a meeting with oil company BP to discuss the effect that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is having on minority workers. Meanwhile, one of the NAACP's local chapters has persuaded Alvin Greene, South Carolina's surprise Democratic Senate nominee, to speak at a meeting Sunday. 

The tea party resolution, which was submitted by the NAACP's Kansas City branch and was first reported by the Kansas City Star, has sparked a hot debate. It says members of the movement have "displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically" and calls "the racist elements" within the tea party "a threat to progress." 

As an example, authors of the statement point to reports by black members of Congress that they endured spitting and racial epithets before voting for the health-care overhaul. (No charges were filed, and some tea party supporters have denied the claims.) 

The resolution also calls on "the leadership and members of the tea party to recognize the historic and present racist factions within it and to repudiate those factions," and says the movement has opposed government programs that help working people and people of color, according to NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell. 

Many members of the loose affiliation of groups that make up the tea party have roundly condemned the resolution. 

"Some of these charges have been going on for a while," said Brendan Steinhauser, director of campaigns for FreedomWorks, which organizes tea party groups. "I think there's been a concerted effort to make us look like were are extreme. . . . We're a very mainstream movement that talks about the debt, the bailouts, the spending." 

Steinhauser said he is "inspired by the American civil rights movement" and considered the 1963 March on Washington a model for the tea party's anti-tax march on the Mall last fall. 

Gina Loudon, one of the founders of the St. Louis Tea Party, told Fox News that the NAACP's charges are untrue and called the resolution a "shame." 

"I can't believe that the tea party is even going to be put in a position of dignifying something like that," she said. "This is sad, because this established organization is being used by the left." 

She said the tea party groups have tried to give minority conservatives a platform. 

A simple majority of the more than 2,000 NAACP voting delegates will have to approve the resolution at a business meeting Tuesday. 

The NAACP has also become the first group to get a meeting with Greene, the South Carolina Senate candidate who was a virtual unknown before winning the Democratic primary in June. Greene, who is from Manning, S.C., told the Associated Press that he has accepted an invitation from that city's NAACP chapter to speak at its regular monthly meeting Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church. 

Greene will give a 20 to 30 minute speech, said chapter President Robert Fleming. Greene also asked for a space to hold a news conference after his speech, said Fleming, whose family has known Greene's for years. (Fleming's family operates the local funeral home, and Greene's mother runs the town's flower shop.) 

"We presented the invitation to him as an opportunity for him to allow the citizens of South Carolina to know why he is running," Fleming said. 

When asked what he planned to discuss, Greene told the AP that he would talk about "jobs, education and justice, the campaign for the general election." 

Back in Kansas City, the first days of the NAACP's weeklong meeting have focused on the oil spill in the gulf and its impact on minorities. NAACP President Ben Jealous sent a letter Saturday to BP saying that minority and local workers are not getting a fair shot at contracts for cleanup work and that the jobs they have gotten are low-paying. 

McDowell said company officials responded quickly. "They will meet with us," she said.