Greene County Democrat

Tag: Benard Simelton

  • Newswire : The president of the Alabama NAACP said a state law banning DEI and divisive concepts was targeted to hurt minority students, and it’s working. 

    Benard Simelton, Alabama NAACP State President

    By John Moon, Alabama Political Reporter

    The Alabama State Conference of the NAACP believes an Alabama law that went into effect in October that eliminates diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses and restricts what professors can teach on matters of race is purposefully harmful to minority students and that the law serves no benefit to white students. 

    Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, told the Alabama Politics This Week podcast that his organization filed a federal lawsuit against the new law because it has already proven harmful to students on college campuses in the state. 

    “This lawsuit is to address what we’re really considering the illegal action by the state to take away some of the things that were offered to minority students on the campus of University of Alabama and other campuses across the state,” Simelton said. “It’s essentially eliminating the opportunity for these students to have access to programs that will help them succeed in college. That can be anything from a physical space where they can join together and communicate and talk and come up with plans to just funding that goes to these students because they are a student organization on the campus of the University of Alabama – on the campuses of universities across the state.”

     The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama filed the lawsuit on behalf of Simelton’s organization, and on behalf of several students and professors at the University of Alabama and UAB. In addition to raising questions about the legality of blocking DEI programs, the lawsuit also claims that the new law encroaches on the First Amendment rights of students and professors by banning the teaching of “divisive concepts.” 

    Simelton said “divisive concepts” is a code word for topics that delve into sensitive matters of racial history, particularly where a more accurate and thorough history of slavery, Jim Crow and other discriminatory practices are tied to the causation of poverty, incarceration rates and homelessness. 

    But he said the NAACP’s primary concern, at least in the immediate future, is ensuring that minority students – many of whom can feel overwhelmed and out of place on a college campus, resulting in academic struggles – get the reasonable assistance they need to feel welcome and comfortable. 

    “We are hoping that the state relooks at this bill, relooks at this law and at least goes back to modify it to where it does not impact students and faculty the way that it is,” Simelton said. “The DEI programs at these institutions have been a tremendous help to students, students of color. And to take that away takes away a part of what makes a student’s experience at a university worthwhile. They want to come there and get a good education, but you’re taking away some of the things that help them to matriculate and to make it through these universities.”

    Simelton also said that his organization could find no evidence — and that no evidence has ever been offered by lawmakers — that white students were harmed, denied resources or otherwise inconvenienced by the DEI programs on college campuses. 

    The state’s anti-DEI law prohibits universities, public school systems and state agencies from sponsoring DEI programs. That includes classes, training, programs and events where attendance is based on a person’s race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin or sexual orientation. In addition, the law prohibits certain divisive concepts, including that a person “should feel guilt because of their race or that fault, blame or bias should be assigned to people based on race, religion, gender or national origin.”

    In practice, however, the law has been a “nightmare,” according to complainants named in the lawsuit. Among several examples of overreach, a social work professor said she was threatened with termination if she didn’t agree to cancel a lesson in which students studied the negative impacts of the anti-DEI law. 

    To listen to Simelton’s interview and for more political news and rational discussions, you can listen to the Alabama Politics This Week podcast at its website or subscribe on all podcast platforms. 

     

  • Newswire : Alabama voting rights groups sue state over voter purge

    By Jacob Holmes, Alabama Political Reporter

    Numerous advocacy groups Friday filed a lawsuit on behalf of Alabamians they say have been unfairly targeted by the state’s illegal voter purge. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Campaign Legal Center and Fair Elections center filed the suit Friday on behalf of four individuals as well as the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, the Alabama NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Alabama.

    The lawsuit comes on the heels of a letter the advocacy organizations sent to notify Secretary of State Wes Allen that Alabama’s voter purge program, which purges naturalized U.S. citizens from the state’s voter rolls shortly before the 2024 election, violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). 

    “Last month, the SPLC and our partners put the Secretary of State on notice for announcing plans to systemically purge individuals on the voter rolls who are naturalized citizens within the 90-day period stipulated by the NVRA,” said Jess Unger, senior staff attorney for voting rights at Southern Poverty Law Center. “Today, we are suing to end this discriminatory program that’s in clear violation of the NVRA – and to protect the rights of thousands of eligible voters that the state of Alabama is trying to silence. No matter what barrier is put in place, we will work to ensure every voice in Alabama is heard.” 

    The purge announced by Allen would remove 3,251 individuals from the voter roll because they, at some point, had been issued a noncitizen identification number. Allen admitted in his announcement that such an individual could have become a naturalized citizen and eligible voter since being issued that ID.

    “No American citizen should be denied their freedom to vote, and all Americans have the same freedom to vote regardless of where they were born. Instead of protecting Americans’ freedom to vote in the November election, Alabama is shamefully intimidating naturalized citizens and illegally purging qualified Americans from voter rolls,” said Bruce V. Spiva, senior vice president of CLC. “Our local election officials work hard to make sure only American citizens can vote. In practice, voter purges like what we are seeing in Alabama target naturalized citizens and prevent qualified Americans from exercising their right to vote. Our democracy works best when every American can participate without fear, and CLC will continue to fight for Americans’ freedom to vote.” 

    Allen has made election security a staple of his platform as secretary of state, focusing particularly on the prevention of undocumented immigrants from voting. His office was recently involved in the arrest of one such individual; however, they used identity theft to perpetrate the crime and were not themselves on the voter roll.

    “It is a foundational principle of our country that every citizen, regardless of where they come from, has a voice in our democracy,” said Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at Fair Elections Center. “What’s more, this is the time for election officials to be reaching out and encouraging new voters to participate, instead of engaging in last-minute election-eve attempts to make it harder to vote for naturalized citizens who have worked so hard for their opportunity to have a say.”

    “Secretary Allen’s actions are not making our elections any safer; instead, they are inactivating lawfully registered voters from the rolls and unnecessarily causing fear and intimidation,” said Kathy Jones, president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama. “Alabama voters need to know that the League is here to fight for them and is committed to ensuring all voters have the opportunity and accurate information to exercise their right to vote.”

    “The Alabama NAACP is again dismayed by the Alabama Secretary of State efforts to disenfranchise voters.  We know that this is a nationwide effort to provide excuses for certain candidates to use if they lose the elections on November 5.  We are committed to doing all that we can to ensure that every voter votes and that every vote is counted despite what obstacles are put in our path,” said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP.

     

  • NAACP holds ‘Voter Restoration Summit’ in Shelby County on 11th anniversary of Supreme Court decision gutting voting rights

    Members of the Youth Panel at NAACP Voter Restoration Summit and Panelists at Plenary Session: L to R : Rev. Dukes, Benard Simelton, Dorry Miles, Marcia Johnson, JaTaudne Gilchrist, Dr. Gary Bledsoe

    Special to the Democrat by John Zippert, Co-Publisher

    This past weekend, the NAACP Alabama State Conference of Branches held a Voter Restoration Summit in Shelby County on the 11th anniversary of the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision which invalidated Section 4B of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). This decision ended the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5, which was a major benefit of the act. Since this decision, many states adopted voter suppression laws to limit voting by Black, Brown and other people of color in our nation.

    The Summit began with a rally at the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana, Alabama, to support the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, which would reverse the decision of the Supreme Court by updating the conditions to find a state or locality in violation of voting rights, based on complaints during the past decade. Several speakers urged the crowd to join in the effort to restore the VRA, expand voting rights and actively participate in the upcoming November election.

    The rally was followed by a meeting for people to get to know each other and listen to some more speakers. Many representatives of the “Devine 9” Black fraternities and sororities spoke about their efforts in voter registration, education and engagement. They stressed the importance of Black voter turnout in the 2nd. and 7th Congressional Districts, where there is a new opportunity to elect two Black representatives to Congress for the next session beginning in January 2025.

    Attorney Faya Rose Toure of the Save Ourselves Movement for Justice and Democracy (SOS) announced that SOS and other organizations were sponsoring a rally at the bridge in Selma on August 6, 2024, the anniversary of the signing of the 1965 VRA and working toward a statewide effort to increase Black turnout in the up=coming election.

    The next day, Saturday, June 22, the Summit shifted to the Arts Building on the campus of the University of Montevallo, still in Shelby County. The program began with a plenary session, followed by a youth panel and workshops in the afternoon.

    At the opening session, Rev. Dukes, President of the Shelby County NAACP Branch said, “the purpose of the Summit was to learn about the Voting Rights Act and answer the question of why it is important to vote in 2024.”
    Benard Simelton, State President of the NAACP, spoke about the negative impacts of the Shelby vs. Holder decision on voting rights in Alabama and other states. He mentioned that in the past legislative session, the Alabama Legislature passed SB1 which tries to ‘criminalize’ the process of absentee voting and seeks to discourage people in Alabama from helping others to cast absentee ballots. Shelby vs. Holder makes it possible for states like Alabama to keep passing more restrictive voter suppression laws to depress the Black vote. He concluded by saying, “our voice is our vote! If we don’t use it, we will surely lose it.”

    Marcia Johnson with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights spoke on Alabama being the birthplace of democracy because of the Selma to Montgomery March which led to the passage of the 1965 VRA. In 2006, the VRA was extended, on a bi-partisan basis, for twenty-five years with 98 votes in the U. S. Senate and 393 in the U. S. House of Representatives. Since then, there has been a backlash and retrenchment against voting rights, including the Shelby decision in 2013. She called the November 5th election, “The most important in our lifetime African Americans must rise up; we must fight to keep our democracy, it is only fair that we do so; we will triumph!”
    .
    Ms. JaTaudne Gilchrist of the Alabama ACLU, who has been active in fighting voter suppression, said, “Although I am fatigued personally, we must still work to insure the future of democracy. Three things keep me moving forward, 1. The value of rigor in our work; the importance of vision and the hope for justice. WE must be prepared for the long haul of this work. We need a ten-year plan and a 100-year plan for our work. We are the ‘benders’ of the arc of justice that Dr. King was talking about.”

    Dr. Gary Bledsoe, President of the Texas State NAACP, said the Shelby vs. Holder decision was the new Fort Sumpter of our age. Saying this decision was the start of a second civil war to prevent us from voting. He concluded by saying, “I people are working so hard to prevent you from voting – there must be something very powerful and important for you to vote.”

    The plenary was followed by a panel of young voters ages 18-39, who spoke on why they are voting and some of the things their friends have said about why they are not voting. This panel was instructive on the distance and difficulties of more experienced voting organizers being able to reach young voters and young leaders.

    There were several panels in the afternoon on issues like maternal healthcare and women’s reproductive rights, attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, and others. This was followed by a closing session in which Benard Simelton and Shalela Dowdy, a community activist and law student from Mobile, reviewed the provisions of the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, which are pending in Congress and the importance of voting in the upcoming November election, especially in Congressional District 2 and District 7 in Alabama.

     

     

  • Newswire: Alabamians, Civil Rights groups launch legal challenges over Alabama racial gerrymandering 

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Individual voters joined with civil rights and faith groups yesterday to file a pair of lawsuits in federal court challenging Alabama’s newly drawn political maps for state legislative and congressional districts.  This is the second major lawsuit questioning
    The lawsuits cite Alabama’s “sordid record” of its white majority using racial discrimination to maintain power. The suits charge that the newly drawn congressional redistricting map denies Black residents equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of choice, and that both the congressional and state legislative maps result from racial gerrymanders that intentionally pack and crack Black communities in the state, which denies such communities equal protection of the laws. 
    Because of this, the lawsuits describe how Alabama’s new district maps violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and how the congressional map also violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 
    The cases were brought on behalf of Greater Birmingham Ministries, Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, and several individuals who are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Hogan Lovells LLP, and the firm Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb.  
    Plaintiffs are requesting a federal court step in to enjoin — or halt — the maps’ implementation to prevent harms to Black Alabamians. 
    “By packing Black voters into a small number of districts and breaking up communities of color throughout the rest of the state, Alabama’s leaders are diminishing the political power of Black Alabamians. That is unlawful,” said Caren Short, senior supervising attorney for the SPLC, which represents plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging the state legislative districts. “This builds on a long history of racial discrimination in voting in Alabama – particularly when drawing political districts – that demands a court-ordered redrawing of maps immediately.” 
    New political maps are drawn as part of a once-in-a-decade redistricting process triggered by census data, that determine the allocation of political power, representation, and ultimately resource access at every level of government across the country for the next 10 years. 
    “Cracking” refers to splitting communities of color into different districts to prevent them from exercising greater political power. “Packing” refers to placing people of color into the same district in greater numbers than necessary to elect candidates of choice to prevent them from exercising greater political power in surrounding districts. 
    According to the lawsuits, Alabama’s steadfast refusal to address the rights of its Black residents is directly linked to its historical and present conditions of racial discrimination against Black people. 
    In five of the six redistricting cycles since 1960, the U.S. Department of Justice or federal courts have found that Alabama’s legislative districts — congressional, state, or both — violate the rights of voters under the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. 
    “It is crucial that Black Alabamians have the opportunity to elect government officials we believe will best serve us,” said Benard Simelton, President of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, a plaintiff in both cases filed today. “Although no longer controlled by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Alabama is still required to provide Black Alabamians that opportunity – these maps attempting to rob our state of its diversity notwithstanding. We will continue this fight for our dignity and political voice, as we long have, in the courts.” 
    Again, in this latest round of drawing political districts, Alabamians had no access to potential maps during the so-called “community input” process that predated the special legislative session. Legislative leaders drew political maps in secret, and at the 11th hour, presented the maps challenged today that use race as a predominant factor in determining district lines – but not in a way tailored to comply with the Voting Rights Act. 
    “I have lived most of my life in Montgomery,” said plaintiff in both lawsuits filed today Evan Milligan. “On more than one occasion, the people in these communities have dramatically impacted the course of this nation’s history – particularly as to civil and human rights…Even with the extended time provided by the delayed release of census data, our Legislature failed to study racially polarized voting so that their map-making decisions could be guided by an interest in protecting the civil rights of Alabama’s nonwhite voters.” 
    The cases are Thomas v. Merrill and Milligan v. Merrill.  
    To view a version of this release in full – including additional statements from plaintiffs and representatives from other counsel – please visit:
    https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/alabamians-civil-rights-groups-launch-legal-challenges-over-alabama-racial
    Thomas v. Merrill complaint challenging state legislative maps: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/complaint_-_thomas_v._merrill.pdf

    Milligan v. Merrill complaint challenging congressional maps: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/complaint_-_milligan_v._merrill.pdf

  • Voting rights coalition meets in Shelby County on 8th anniversary of Shelby vs Holder decision to call for an end to voter suppression

    A coalition of Alabama voting rights advocates held a press conference in front of the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana,  Alabama to decry the lack of progress on voting rights on the eighth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County vs. Holder case. The Supreme Court’s decision gutted Sections 4 and 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which provided for pre-clearance by the U. S. Department of Justice of changes in voting laws, rules and regulations by state and local jurisdictions in the Southern statesThis decision unleashed a torrent of laws and regulations which made it more difficult for Black, Brown, poor and young people to vote around our nation. Benard Simelton, State President of the NAACP said, “We are here today in Shelby County on the 8th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s putting a knife in the back of the VRA, to call for unfettered access to the polls for all people and an end to voter suppression which is designed to depress the votes of Black, Brown and other disadvantaged people. We are not sitting back. We are actively working to fight voter suppression in all of its ways. “Laws like the one passed in Georgia to prohibit people from giving snacks and water to people on line to vote. The curbs on drop-boxes and curbside voting must be changed. The changes that affect how votes are counted. The purging of voters must all be changed,” said Simelton. Jessica Barker, Coordinator of Lift Our Vote from Huntsville, said, “We are demanding a change to end voter suppression and support our voting rights. We are here today to support the national efforts to support voting rights by passing HR 1 and S1 – The For the People Act and HR-4 The John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, in the United States Congress.” Pastor McMillan of Shelby County, said, “We are here today to try to rescue democracy for all people in Alabama and the nation. Access to the vote is not just reserved for the rich and powerful but for all of us.” Dr. Adia Winfrey of Transform Alabama spoke on her efforts to marshal the power of hip-hop culture to involve young people in the fight for voting rights and civil rights. John Zippert, SaveOurselves Coalition for Justice and Democracy linked the struggle for voting rights with other social change campaigns that SOS is working on including Medicaid Expansion, Criminal Justice Reform, Economic Justice and Worker’s Rights. Rachel Knowles, a white staff member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said she was a native of Shelby County, grew up there and went to public schools, however, “Now I am ashamed and disappointed to be from a place that is opposed to voting rights for all people.” Rev. Carolyn Foster of the Alabama Poor People’s Campaign said, “Voting rights is a moral and systemic justice issue. We are concerned with restrictive voter ID laws, redistricting problems and the myth of voter fraud. The only way to change things and get what you want is to organize to take it.” After the Courthouse Rally, the groups moved to Orr Park in Montevalo, Alabama and held a ‘voting rights fair” with booths to register people, including the previously incarcerated, get vaccine for the coronavirus, music, food, and fellowship.

  • Newswire: Bernard Simelton elected to NAACP National Board of Directors

    Bernard Simelton

    Bernard Simelton

    The Alabama State Conference of the NAACP is proud to announce that Benard Simelton who serves as President of the Alabama State Conference was elected to serve as a member of the National Board of Directors at their annual meeting in New York on February 17, 2018.
    Board member James Crowell who nominated Simelton, noted his work with the special senate election in Alabama, held on Dec 12th. Crowell also mentioned the dedication and tenacity during Simelton’s tenure as the Alabama State Conference NAACP president.
    After being sworn in as a National Board member, Mr. Simelton took his seat at the board meeting! “I am excited about moving forward in this new role as a National Board member and as I take the oath of office, I look forward to furthering the mission and goals of the NAACP,” said Benard Simelton.
    Simelton will also continue to serve as President of the Alabama State Conference.