Membership Meeting Agendas
NAACP Reno/Sparks Branch #1112
Phone: (775) 322-2992
P.O. Box 7757
Reno, NV 89510
Email: info@renosparksnaacp.org

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month
Rita Cannan Elementary School / Multi-purpose Room
2450 Cannan Street * Reno, NV 89512
Executive Committee 6:30 p.m. / General Membership 7:00 p.m.

Next meeting 12 February 2015

2015-16 officers and executive committee

Become a member / contribute

Reno-Sparks NAACP Facebook Page
INSTAGRAM: renosparks_naacp

 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. —

• " If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over. "

• "Through violence, you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence, you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate."

• " Nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks the instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent."

• "Who are we? We are the descendants of slaves. ... We are the heirs of a past of rope, fire and murder. I for one am not ashamed of this past."

• "If a man hasn’t found something he’ll die for, he isn’t fit to live."

Poor Denny's Almanac for Jan. 18: Goose and Gander

On this date in 1883, Nevada’s Roop County was abolished and attached to Washoe County; in 1903, the following appeared in Reno's Nevada State Journal: “From the Arcade Champion Bootblack his friends and the public: Some negroes and dagoes are advertising my stand as ‘unfair’ for the simple reason that I am a white American citizen, and born on the soil and do not associate or affiliate with that class, and desire to accommodate and please my patrons. Because the barber shop bootblacks are compelled to close Sundays is no reason why I should be compelled to. If my health permitted and I was able, I would sooner shovel sand than be a bootblack, but I must make an honest living and trust and hope that my friends and the public at large will assist me in so doing as they have in the past. Wm. M. Trieb.”; in 1935, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Boulder City Journal jointly began publication of a magazine insert, Five Star Weekly; in 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began; in 1958, a group of Lumbee tribe members, irritated by cross burnings and other white race problems, put participants in a Maxton, North Carolina, Ku Klux Klan rally to flight; in 1964, plans for a World Trade Center in New York City were announced; in 1969, Vanessa Gower Coates was born in St. Mary’s Hospital in Reno; in 1972, location shooting began on Ulzana’s Raid, filmed in Arizona and Nevada; in 1985, the United States, which had turned to the World Court in 1979 to hear its case against Iran for the taking of the Tehran embassy, walked out of the Court and refused to recognize its jurisdiction when a case was brought against the United States for its efforts to overthrow the Nicaraguan government (the court ruled against the United States and ordered it to pay financial reparations, which are still unpaid); in 1990, six and a half years after the first arrest, after 28 months of trial and years of lurid news coverage, and at a cost of more than $15 million, the McMartin child sexual abuse trial ended in an acquittal for the defendants; in 2003, several hundred people filled Reno’s Manzanita Bowl hillside to protest George Bush’s impending invasion of Iraq.

On January 15, 1901, in Leavenworth, Kansas, an African American named Fred Alexander, who was jailed on dubious evidence for allegedly assaulting two women, was broken out of jail by a mob and burned at the stake in a nearby ravine (Nevada State Journal: “One More Inhuman Brute Gets His Just Deserts.”); in 1929, Michael King was born in Atlanta (when he was five years old, his father would change both their names to honor Martin Luther); in 1962 at a news conference, President Kennedy was asked, “Mr. President, are American troops in combat in Vietnam?” and he answered with one word, “No”, which was a lie; in 1968, five thousand members of the Jeanette Rankin Brigade (named for the Montana congressmember who voted against 1916 and 1941 declarations of war) marched in Washington — led by 87 year-old Rankin — in protest against the Vietnam War; in 1978, tyrant Shah Reza Pahlavi fled Iran an hour ahead of the posse; in 2005 during a morning news program on KTNV-13 in Las Vegas, weather reporter Rob Blair referred to “Martin Luther Coon King” and (in an apology for the first reference) “Martin Luther Kong, Jr.”, prompting a workforce threat of a walkout (Blair was fired the next day).

On Jan. 14, 1917, James McMillan, who would become a leading African-American figure in Nevada history, was born in Mississippi; in 1966, a march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta was held to protest the refusal by the Georgia House to seat Representative Julian Bond because of Bond’s criticism of U.S. aggression in Vietnam and praise of the courage of draft card burners; in 1973, the largest audience for a concert in human history, an estimated forty million people, saw Elvis perform live by satellite from Hawaii; in 2003, a panel of musicians convened by Britain’s Q magazine named Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right (Mama)” by Elvis as the song that most changed the world. (Billie Holiday's version of "Strange Fruit" came in at number six.)

— (Courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' daily Poor Denny's Almanac. Copyright © 2015 Dennis Myers, all rights reserved.)

2015 MLK Events Archive

"We don't endorse candidates. This is about the operation of our state legislature.

"Now, we hopefully can move forward rather than take a step backward.

"If he had stayed in place, there are issues coming up like voter i.d. and health care that have racial overtones and impacts.

"We want to make sure all Nevadans are treated fairly.

"The sum total of his articles is that blacks are genetically inferior. That's the point to it."

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Jeffrey Blanck (775) 324-6640
Andrew Barbano (775) 786-1455
Lonnie Feemster (775) 722-0042
RenoSparksNAACP.org
E-mail info@renosparksnaacp.org

Reno-Sparks NAACP asks Nevada State Assembly Republican Caucus to replace Ira Hansen as speaker
Long litany of racist and bigoted statements published

RENO, NEV. (11-20-2014) — The Reno-Sparks NAACP this week asked the Nevada State Assembly Republican Caucus to reconsider its recent unanimous election of Assemblymember Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, as speaker of the lower house for the 2015 legislative session.

"We were very disappointed by the decision," stated Reno-Sparks Branch President Jeffrey Blanck.

"We understand that the caucus has many newly elected members who may not be as familiar with Mr. Hansen's past as we are. They need to know he has beaten the drum of intolerance for decades," Blanck said.

"We do not ask anyone to take our word for it. Take his words. A detailed compendium of his racist, bigoted and homophobic views has been posted online and may be accessed via the Reno-Sparks NAACP’s website at RenoSparksNAACP.org," Blanck added.

I hope you will do all you can to get the Republican Party to repudiate this bigoted legislator. He is a disgrace to Nevada and a disgrace to democracy. The onus here needs to be placed on the Republican Party. Are they going to continue to harbor this man and treat him as a responsible human being or expose him as the scoundrel he really is? Can he continue in this position of responsibility or should he be made to step down? Make them choose! — Julian Bond, NAACP Chairman Emeritus, 11-20-2014

“As a public official, Hansen’s comments are of importance,” Blanck stated.

Two-time Branch past-president Lonnie Feemster knows Hansen well and has debated him in public.

"What can you add about the retrogressive mindset of someone who refuses to believe in evolution and advocates for private schools?" Feemster said.

The web postings come from Hansen's longrunning commentaries in the Sparks Tribune over 17 years, as well as reader criticisms.

"They run the expected gamut of discrimination," stated Branch Vice-President Andrew Barbano.

"My favorite is Ira's defense of the Confederate flag as emblematic of the courage of his Civil War heroes, including Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a founder of the Ku Klux Klan." Barbano added.

Barbano, a Tribune columnist for the past 26 years, compiled the research.

Hansen appointed Assemblymember Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, to a major committee chairmanship. Wheeler brought national ridicule on Nevada when he said he would vote to bring back slavery "if that's what the constituency wants."

"All this would be laughable were it not so abhorrent and dangerous," Blanck said.

"Mr. Hansen has long been an unyielding opponent of everything the NAACP supports. We are willing to sit down and talk with him and we hope he can rise above his prejudices to become a true public servant. But, given his long and extremely disappointing record, the best interests of Nevada will be best served if the Republican caucus elects a less divisive leader," Blanck stated.

The NAACP is the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Reno-Sparks Branch No. 1112 was formally chartered in 1947.

 

Above: [Photo caption from Sunday, 9 November 2014 Reno Gazette-Journal print edition] Bertha Woodard (1916-1999) and Eddie Scott take part in a March 1961 protest march in support of civil rights. The identity of the young girl is not known. (Photo: RGJ file / Life info added)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The sign the little girl holds reads "We want to be first class citizens". Anyone who knows her identity, the branch would appreciate knowing it along with any other information. Please e -mail First Vice-President Andrew Barbano. Thank you.

UPDATE 11-17-2014: Eddie Scott informs us that the little girl was named Mary Ann, a daughter of one of Bertha's next-door neighbors. Now, we just need her last name.

Emerson: Sawyer, Woodard put principles into practice
By Rev. John Emerson / Reno Gazette-Journal guest commentary 11-9-2014

Site map

Membership Meeting Agendas
NAACP Reno/Sparks Branch #1112
Phone: (775) 322-2992
P.O. Box 7757
Reno, NV 89510
Email: info@renosparksnaacp.org

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month
Rita Cannan Elementary School / Multi-purpose Room
2450 Cannan Street * Reno, NV 89512
Executive Committee 6:30 p.m. / General Membership 7:00 p.m.

2015-16 Officers and Executive Committee

Complaint Form
The NAACP cannot act without a written complaint

Membership Forms, choose format: .jpg or .pdf

Reno-Sparks-Washoe Education: Smoke & Mirrors

Saving Local Libraries

Voting Rights

Trayvon Martin Murder Archive

How to join / Annual membership / Donate

Links / History / Archives

Mission and Objectives

Meeting place and times

2014 News & Events

Annual César Chávez Day Celebration

Reno-Sparks Branch Past-Presidents Honor Roll

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INSTAGRAM: renosparks_naacp