FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ONLY 15% OF VOTERS ALLOWED TO VOTE ARE AFRICAN-AMERICANS Once again, a local NAACP branch takes its eye off the prize, as it denies Ron Edwards, veteran "eye on the prize" community activist, its Presidency in a rigged and fraudulent election. This took place Saturday, November 23, 2002, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and reflects a disturbing national trend. Ron ran for the office, encouraged by a group called "Friends of Ron Edwards." Ron was Chairman of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, 1979-83, and President/Chairman of the local Urban League (1978-1989), and has served on the local NAACP Executive Committee (1999-2002) and chaired its Housing Committee (1999-2002). Ron Edwards is the author of the recently published and highly acclaimed chronicle (The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes) about the process of how Whites keep Blacks in their place in Minneapolis (and around the country), often through their favored Blacks, as with the Minneapolis NAACP. Ron Edwards was the peoples’ choice. He lost to Lindsay by a vote tally of 111-21 out of 380 members in a city of 30,000 Blacks. Astonishingly, after so many blacks were not allowed to vote, 85% of the votes that were allowed were White. The local NAACP violated its own Constitution and By-laws in numerous ways, including denying the vote even to those with Lifetime Member Cards. Portland, Oregon’s Beacon on the Hill Press is proud to support the efforts of Friends of Ron Edwards, who will mount the first of several legal challenges of this rigged election and massive voter fraud, beginning Monday, November 25, 2002, using eye witness accounts backed up by video tape. We will continue to update this story with follow-up press releases. Edwards stated that "I am pleased that the Friends of Ron Edward are mounting this challenge, not because I lost the election, but because of my concern for the Black people in general and young Black men in particular, in Minneapolis and across the country." Edwards has proposed his own solutions to such problems in the Black community and the irrelevancy of the NAACP in his new book, The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, available at www.TheMinneapolisStory.com and at www.amazon.com. Additional information for Web page Press Release We are disturbed at the reports we have received that the election was rigged with massive voter fraud, as the local branch boldly violated its own constitution and by-laws. Four of the non-Edwards voters were members of the Minneapolis School Board against which the NAACP has a law suit. How can one not thing that these four, who have never before participated in any NAACP function or activity, were there clearly trying to control the lawsuit’s outcome. Even more baldly flagrant was the denial of the vote to Lifetime Members, the most sacred of NAACP memberships. Edwards further asked "How can Black people complain about Florida in 2000 and then turn around and disenfranchise their own people in Minneapolis?" Beacon On The Hill Press sees this as a situation in which the local branch of the NAACP has clearly become what they hate. They have been unfair and unjust, and continue their serving of White Bossism, just as Edwards describes in his new book, The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, which he discusses in Chapters 11-14. As Edwards put it, "One has to wonder how a group can be so out of touch with the reality of today that they define this kind of behavior as good when in truth the data clearly shows that their approach is not only wrong but it causes bad consequences for Black people." And continuing the theme of non-coverage from the major paper, the Star Tribune story completely ignored what happened, treated it as if all was well and calm, as it referred instead to problems in the 1999 election. I’m sure the contrast in coverage between the Black newspapers in town and the Strib will be enormous (see http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3453044.html). This is another reason that Beacon on the Hill Press applauds the Friends of Ron Edwards Committee as it addresses (1) the fixing of the results, a clear sign of the Minneapolis NAACP branch’s decay and corruption, (2) the irrelevance to Blacks today of the NAACP and (3) why the leadership of "eye on the prize" activists like Ron Edwards are so needed in the Black communities across America. The problem in Black communities in cities across the country are described by Edwards in his book, where he "connects the dots" to provide an understanding of how Whites and their Black minions, continue the bossism discrimination against Blacks in such areas as education, housing, jobs, voting, and the taking of Black land and wealth. He describes how the local NAACP helps the White bosses run the grandest liberal plantation on the Mississippi. This is a sorry step in Minneapolis backwards into the 19th century, not a step forward into the 21st century. Edwards further noted that "As Black people we have come to expect neither the Democrats nor the Republicans to step up for Blacks in this country. But when the local NAACP adopts and continues to adopt this same behavior, it certainly gives one pause. It also explains why out of 30,000 Blacks in Minneapolis, there are only 380 members of the local NAACP, of which a high number is White, who are there to make sure the so-called Black "leaders" do as their White political plantation masters dictate. Again: 85% of those votes that were allowed were White. They have made the local branch a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People. To learn more about this and about the process and steps Edwards recommends for resolving this for the future, see Chapters 5 and 17 of his book, The Minneapolis Story," available for ordering on this web site. |
