Second Annual NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet

By Liz Gaschler

POUGHKEEPSIE – The Northern Dutchess National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held their second annual Freedom Fund Banquet at the Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel on Thursday, August 10. The “oldest, boldest and baddest civil rights organization,” said by Elouise Maxey, President of the NAACP, celebrated their 108th national convention under the theme “steadfast and immovable.”

“Racism is still very alive and well,” Maxey said. “We were steadfast 108 years ago and we still are today, by addressing and eliminating racism.”

The event sold out, filling up the ballroom with over 100 excited people yearning to hear from the 11 honorees and Key Note Speaker and Man of Distinction, Jeh Charles Johnson, former secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration. A 1975 Roy C. Ketcham graduate, Johnson is no stranger to the Poughkeepsie area. His father, Jeh V. Johnson, who sat in the audience, was a professor at Vassar college for 37 years and architected buildings on the campus along with others in the Poughkeepsie area.

After paying tribute to his parents and wife, Johnson shared humorous stories of often being confused in public as President Barack Obama and made his way to the heart of his speech – Learning from the past.

“Those who know history, learn from it,” Johnson said. “Those who don’t know history are bound to repeat the mistakes of it… We see this unfolding today, not naming any names.”

The crowd laughed.

Within three years, Johnson testified in front of Congress 26 times. It was not until halfway through his tenor that he realized his grandfather Dr. Charles S. Johnson, an American sociologist and president of the historically black Fisk University, stood in the same spot, in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee nearly 70 years ago.

Johnson read from an old transcript citing his grandfather’s testimony from July 19, 1948.  When Dr. Johnson was asked for his opinion on the “loyalty of African Americans,” he immediately rejected the idea.

His response to answer such a question was “it is more than unnecessary, it would be absurd.”

Dr. Charles S. Johnson was thanked for writing the African American’s point of view as a first class citizen in a New York Times article published in the year 1956.

All of these acts, embody what the NAACP fights for.

“I was attracted to the word advancement,” Fred Clarke, litigation attorney and chairmen of the event said. “For advancement to take place, you have to be exposed to opportunity, and sometimes you need a little help to get there.”