The nation’s oldest civil rights organization’s birthday next month comes as it undergoes restructuring to reflect membership and leadership that is trending younger, to people in their mid-30s. The hope is that younger Americans see the NAACP has modernized beyond being Grandma and Grandpa’s go-to civil rights hub, good for much more than voter-registration drives and the star-studded Image Awards. “We had to reinvigorate the organization,” national President Derrick Johnson, 53, told the Associated Press. But in periods of NAACP history when it found itself embroiled in financial hardship and internal power struggles, the group appeared ineffective or even irrelevant. Past critics have said the NAACP was insular, too concerned with corporate funding, and not nearly nimble or progressive enough for the times.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 21, 2022 17:13 UTC