NAACP forum addresses pressing issues

Sampson’s NAACP branch recently held discussions among Black leaders during an initial series of planned town hall forums aimed at combating issues plaguing the Black community.

The forum, held at First Baptist Church on College Street, was well attended with members from the county and city boards, pastors from across the county, NAACP members and even a large youth turnout. The reason each gathered was to share their input into the meeting’s theme, “Conversation For Change.”

“We’re gathered here tonight to find out more about the issues affecting the Black community in Sampson County,” NAACP President Larry Sutton said. “We have made great strides in this country over the years, however, there’s a ‘but’ and that but is what concerns me.”

“While we have had a lot of progress, we’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to educating our people on the issues we’ll discuss this evening,” he added. “So tonight, we gather to help figure out how we can solve those same issues and continue to push our positive momentum forward.”

Sutton shared a few more sentiments afterwards, touching on history, movements against equity for black Americans and much more. The meat of the meeting came next which was titled as the central theme on the agenda — “The State of Black Sampson County.”

To cover that, Sutton opened the floor, which led to nearly two hours of talks. Those conversations revolved around voting, environmental concerns and education, along with involvement and engagement among the Black community and youth.

Voting was at the forefront of those issues and was thought by many to be most pressing problem to consider.

According to reports NAACP made, in North Carolina, there are significant voting disparities and inequality, particularly among minority communities. Low voter turnout in recent elections, with only 24.2% of eligible voters casting their ballots, was a major concern.

It was also noted that the state has over 7 million eligible voters, of those only 1,790,838 actually voted, resulting in the 24.2% who cast a vote, which was said to be down 7.17 % percent from 2023.

“In order to build up the community and address our problems so that we can make progress, the number one thing we talk about in our meetings is the need to vote.”

Statements similar to that were made from nearly every person who spoke on voting. To help improve, emphasis was made multiple times for support within civic organizations, churches, families and personal homes to promote and advocate for voting to address these issues. Ways to make voting more appealing through fun was also suggested by the youth involved.

The meeting took a shift after that as the NAACP’s Luther Moore came forth and spent lengthy time covering his concerns, which related to environmental issues.

His main points centered around how African American communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental issues, including landfills, farmland spraying and industrial emissions. Those injustices, as he phrased them, lead to carcinogens, hormone disruption and respiratory problems within African American and other marginalized communities.

“I’m here to talk about something that needs to be done and that’s dealing with our numerous environmental issues,” he said. “We have the landfill here in Sampson County and where it’s located is in the heart of the Black community. Those trucks that come in are bringing things in that are harmful to the environment and the science being done is going to show us the effects of that and its effects on people who are living close by.”

Moore went on to reference how that’s causing the spread of PFAS, a carcinogen that is harmful to the body, which can easily migrate into the air, dust, food, soil and water.

Other issues he made known were animal waste lagoon possibilities of penetrating groundwater and the general lack of safe drinking water in minority based areas in Sampson.

“There are other areas right now whose people are having to use well water because they don’t have safe drinking water — that’s an issue,” he said.

Animal waste that’s sprayed on fields causing the release of chemicals like nitrogen and the effects of wood pellet burning from companies such as Enviva were also mentioned.

“All these things that I’m talking about are in the heart of Black communities,” Moore said. “Research will shows that when they put plants or industries that are emitting these chemicals that are harmful to the body, they’re become part of the Black community. These are the things I think we should look at ways to improve because all are environmental problems directly affecting African Americans and people of color who are less fortunate.”

The remaining topics were a bit of a mixed bag that each tied together in at least one way. Each had to do with improving life for the youth; be it through finding ways to get them better access to private schools or by banding together to take on legislation to uplift public schooling by getting more funding.

Finding ways to get more involved in the community and engaging them in their households at early ages to curb gang violence was also noted, with options for education including having them join the NAACP Youth Council to educate them on these issues and teaching them the importance voting has in their voices being heard.

Sutton said each of the progress on addressing issues can’t be achieved if they as the leaders don’t take the first steps.

“We want to get our young folks engaged, more involved and encourage them to do well because they are our future Black leaders,” Sutton said. “We want them registering to vote and to be impactful in how they’ll live in society. Our youth element is critical to the county as a whole so we’ve got to find ways to engage our youth and get them involved, from early on and after their high school years.

“We heard tonight about problem in the undercurrent of increased gang activities. If we can get them more involved, a lot of that will be cut out. Right now they are looking for something that will attract them and the right words from a gang member will work. We‘ve got to have ways to counteract that and it starts early, and let’s be truthful, we need to also engage the family,” he continued. “The parents and family must be become engaged with the child from birth up through the child becoming an adult, the house, the home and family must be engaged as well.”

After the long debates, listing of issues and brainstorming solutions, Sutton said one thing was abundantly clear after the inaugural meeting: There is a lot of work to do.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us and the NAACP wants to continue to hear your suggestions and we want to hear your ideas,” he said. “That said, we invite you to, beyond tonight, join us and do more to help create that involvement we need to get folks on the books everywhere in the community.”

“So tonight we’ve identified some issues that are seen as critical issues impacting Blacks in Sampson County,” said Sutton. “Now let’s work together to start addressing them.”