GREENSBORO — The Rev. William Barber got what he came for Sunday night: converts.
Not at the altar, although many of his listeners marched to the front of Pfeiffer Chapel on the Bennett College campus at the end of his sermon.
These converts gathered around a table in the lobby of the chapel.
A dozen or more Bennett women lined up to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Barber, the new president of the North Carolina NAACP, brought what he calls his membership and vision tour to Bennett, where his daughter, Sharrelle, is a student.
“It’s your turn,” the Goldsboro minister told his audience. “It’s your time. .... Where would we be if Martin Luther King Jr. kept his faith to himself?”
Last month, Barber unseated Melvin “Skip” Alston, a Guilford County commissioner who had held the presidency of the state group since 1996.
NAACP insiders believe that as a minister, Barber will be more visible and perhaps have a wider appeal than did Alston, a businessman.
Barber said he has launched a campaign to increase the group’s membership 10 percent by the end of the year.
In an interview before his visit, Barber said he couldn’t provide an accurate membership total.
“The numbers are shifting,” he said. “I have said consistently that the membership of the NAACP must be maintained, broadened, deepened and strengthened.”
Barber did say he hoped to add between 1,500 and 2,000 members before his tour ends.
The Bennett stop kicked off his tour.
“I believe the NAACP is an activist, out-front organization that must be at the center of many of the moral, political and legal issues of our time,” he said during the interview. “I am talking about the public policy of our day, ranging from issues like disparity in health care to ... the resegregation of public school that we see all around us. .... We have to be both agitators and innovators.”
Barber said he wants to see more young people involved in the NAACP.
“What draws young people into any organization is relevance,” he said. “What we have to do is celebrate the great victories of the past and raise awareness of the continuous struggles that we have. Awareness is what creates action.”
In the end, Barber’s message, which focused on Deborah in the book of Judges, got a boost from Bennett President Johnnetta B. Cole.
“When we leave this chapel tonight, I ask that not a one of us leaves without joining the NAACP,” Cole said. “We have no choice.”
Cole told the students in the audience that if they did not have the $10 membership fee, she would pay it for them.
Jessica Hinton, a sophomore from Harrington, Del., was among those who flocked to the lobby to sign up — but not because of Cole’s offer.
“After tonight, it’s like necessary to join,” she said.
“It’s an excellent way to express the equal rights of people.”
Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or
donpatterson@news-record.com
Linear Mode
