Chesterfield NAACP Cancels Dinner Over Speaker Flap
CHESTERFIELD NAACP CANCELS BANQUET. After a disagreement over three guest speakers, including two moderate Republicans, the Chesterfield NAACP cancelled their Freedom Fund Banquet & Gala scheduled to take place on August 20, 2022.
The three speakers in question were Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Coles James, State Senator Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond City), and moderate Republican Del. Carrie Coyner (HD62).
Senator Morrissey is currently working to bring a casino to Petersburg, Virginia — an area facing economic challenges. It was reported in late July that the new casino in Bristol, Virginia brought in $37 million in ten days — from July 5-14, 2022 — an amount of revenue no one had predicted.
After a vote to cancel the dinner involving nine members was taken, an announcement was published on the Chesterfield NAACP’s Facebook page. Two members of the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County & Beyond objected to Republican speakers and State Senator Morrissey. All three were expected to deliver legislative updates at the event. Liberal Women of Chesterfield County became prominent after Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
That announcement posted yesterday on Facebook is seen here:
Though the NAACP has defined themselves as politically “non-partisan,” the deeply expanding partisan divide driven by social media toxicity and the rise of Trumpism has made that designation difficult to fully execute in recent years.
But in this case, James and Coyner are moderate Republicans. Coyner was one of three Republicans in the House of Delegates to vote against the death penalty which has been disproportionately used against Black defendants.
In 2017, President Donald Trump declined an invitation to speak at the national NAACP convention in Baltimore. In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was booed at the national NAACP convention on Houston as Vice President Joe Biden was cheered. In 2005 President George Bush declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP’s national convention.
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