According to Wikipedia, a charlatan is “(also called swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception.”
While the entire NAACP and its many autonomous chapters should not be condemned, the national leadership embodied by its leader and main mouthpiece Benjamin Jealous must be called out for his misrepresentation of the truth regarding the case of the Scott Sisters. The two sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott have languished in a Mississippi prison plantation for nearly 17 years after being convicted of an armed robbery for which they had no part in, and sentenced to double life terms for eleven dollars. Governor Haley Barbour recently suspended their sentences but fell short of acknowledging the injustice done to the sisters and placed dubious conditions on their impending release.
Benjamin Jealous was exposed in early December of 2010 of using the Sisters in soliciting funds for the NAACP which contributed nothing to their legal defense or the efforts undertaken by Evelyn Rascoe, their mother, and Nancy Lockhart to publicize the case and recruit grassroots Internet activist to take up the sisters cause.
Today, Benjamin Jealous had the audacity to attach the NAACP name to the Scott Sisters again. In an article written by Jealous and published on the Huffington Post, he states,
“During the past two weeks, in response to successful grassroots campaigns, two governors have released black Americans who had been railroaded by our nation's criminal justice system. Together, these cases speak to the urgent need for the work the NAACP and our allies are doing to encourage more Governors to use their clemency authority as our nation's founding fathers intended by freeing more deserving people more frequently.”
While the substance of the article has many truths about America’s injustice system, he failed to acknowledge the sister's mother or Nancy Lockhart and simply uses the phrase grassroots campaigns. Excuse me but those campaigns had leaders and foot soldiers none of which were associated with Benjamin Jealous and while he states there is an urgent need for the work the NAACP is doing, again insinuating they played some major role in the efforts, unfortunately the NAACP did not see the urgency to take up the Scott Sisters case when they contacted for help many, many years ago.
Benjamin Jealous and the NAACP will be the topic of discussion for this January 1, 2011 broadcast at 10:00PM EST right here on Black Talk Radio News & Views, Bringing You The News You Can Use!
