Thompson, Johnson challenge Mississippians to make history by turning out the vote Nov. 5

On Saturday before a crowd of approximately 600, NAACP president Derrick Johnson and U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson provided information, praised organizers and activists, and offered challenges to the audience of NAACP members and supporters from across the state. They were preceded by local leaders who also spoke, including Robert James, Allytra Perryman, Charles Taylor, Nsombi Lambright Haynes, Cassandra Robinson, Robin Jackson, and Courtney Body.

The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP had scheduled the meeting, a strategy session, at the Hilton Jackson as a “Call to Action.” The first hour was given over to the talks and the last hour dealt with ideas from the attendees, with a lunch break in between.

It was apparent that many had come to hear Thompson and Johnson speak. They left being pleased with what they heard. 

Thompson used much of his time expressing confidence that most of the people in the audience would go to the polls and do the right thing on election day. At the same time, however, he left no stones unturned, reminding them of some of the things that had been done by Joe Biden’s administration, such as student loan forgiveness and compensation to Black farmers who had been discriminated against by previous administrations. He compared the current administration with that of the immediate past administration, urging the audience to help us make history and to transform the campaign of Kamala Harris into a movement that not only preserves, but extends democracy in America.

At the same time, he cautioned that victory on November would not be easy. Along that line, he urged the audience to get out and vote, to get their friends and neighbors to vote, and even to contact their friends and relatives in the northern states to vote as well. 

He ended what was an in-depth pep talk, with a brief question and answer segment. In that segment he explained that behind the scenes there were Democrats who were angling for an open convention if they could push Biden out of the race, but that by naming Harris as his chosen successor, Biden had closed that door. Thompson also talked about the importance of courage and common sense that could have been used by some local Black elected officials in cases that would have greatly improved their Black communities.

President Derrick Johnson then took to the microphone. His basic approach was one of trying to uplift and motivate the audience to become more optimistic. One of his first lines was for Mississippians to recognize the power that they do have. Near the end of the talk he returned to the idea, asking them to operate from a surplus rather than a deficit mind-set.

Among the other ideas that he stressed was that Mississippi could soon be a Black majority state. In the same breath he talked about the large number of white college graduates who leave the state each year, suggesting that Mississippi University for Women and Delta State University were both likely to close and that there were not enough white students to continue sustaining those two along with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss. He further suggested that many whites maintain a middle-class lifestyle by becoming state officials and then fraudulently taking government funds as was uncovered in the TANF scandal. 

Johnson pointed to Project 2025 as a blueprint by which its developers intend to take control of the government and utilize its wealth and power as minority rulers. 

A secondary theme of Johnson’s was that citizens should closely watch how revenue is gotten and on whom it is spent. While he admitted that we need to pay attention to and deal with other issues, such as (1) what is and what is not taught in the schools, (2) Black voter participation, and (3) negative terms used for Black people, major focus must be on the economic matters like taxes, privatization, charter schools, and the state take-over of services in Black-run municipalities. In the quest for democracy, he was not hesitant on saying that Black officials who cannot or do not stand for the best interests of the Black communities should be gotten rid of.

In the question and answer session, Johnson stressed that instead of focusing on generational political differences, organizers and activists should focus on how to provide for the interests of each generation. He ended by pointing to the institutions and data bases that can help empower Black people, thereby expanding democracy.

The participants remaining after the major speakers eagerly joined in developing and reporting on the strategies and activities they felt would be politically effective and for which they would volunteer. Throughout that segment as well as the earlier segment, audience members repeatedly pledged that they were “All-In” for the current political struggle because, “when we fight, we win.”