Know-and-go call to action urged during national NAACP convention

CHARLOTTE — North Carolina Black Alliance representatives were on the ground during the national NAACP convention here earlier this month.

During a session on the state of America’s democracy, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, from Illinois, urged audience members to get a copy of the Constitution and read it.

“We have to know our rights,” said Underwood, the first non-white person and first female to serve Illinois’ 14th congressional district. “We spend so much time talking to immigrant communities about knowing their rights, and we walk around and we don’t know ours. And it’s a problem. If something happens, you’ll be like, ‘That’s not right.” Well, how do you know? Let’s know our rights.”

Underwood told attendees they can help initiate a course correction within American democracy both through face-to-face meetings and at town-hall settings with their congressional representatives.

“If they don’t do town-hall meetings, then pull up on ’em at an event, OK? They’ll be so pressed to take a picture with you because they know they need to take a picture with a Black person,” Underwood said.

The convention’s theme was The Fierce Urgency of Now.