the National Association for the advancement of colored people is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial Endeavor to advance Justice for African-Americans by a group including web de boys Mary White Ovington ID Wells and Henry moscowitz the Milwaukee Branch was established in 1924 and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year it's been on the front lines of the struggle for integrated School schools and open housing we're joined Now by Clarence P Nicholas the president of the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP Mr Nicholas thank you so much for being here thank you for having me absolutely so from your perspective talk about what the NAACP has meant and done for the struggle and advancement of black people both locally and nationally well for instance if we go to nationally we go to the 1954 Brown versus Board of Education and how the NAACP worked to integrate or desegregate the schools nonetheless here in Milwaukee Brown has not been overturned and we have what is called a de facto segregated school system so talk about what Milwaukee has done though uh the Milwaukee Branch how has the Milwaukee Branch contributed to the National struggle so the Milwaukee Branch mission is the same as the national mission in order to have what is called a healthy Society you must have equity and education employment housing health care and social justice so the NAACP Milwaukee fights for those areas likewise because we like to see a healthy Milwaukee all right so talk about now 100 Years of the NAACP why is the NAACP still relevant today well you you know that uh discrimination Prejudice as well as biasness in employment Ed education housing health care and social justice is prevalent and it's still being fought for so we're looking to assist individuals who come into our office with complaints in those areas so talk about that then what are some of the major priorities of the organization nationally and locally like you were mentioning of course you know voting is one of the priorities at this time the priority then of course we're looking at equality as in terms of trying to make Health Care education housing and social justice more prevalent for African-Americans and people of color you talked about voting and something that is really important especially uh this time of year so what are some of those efforts that uh the NAACP uh particularly here in Milwaukee is uh taking on to make sure that uh everyone has that access and that uh you know that support is being felt in the black community here now that the national sends us funding so that we can get out canvas we use what it's called a van a van has people addresses emails phone numbers and also have information whether or not they're registered voters so we can look at the van and call people email people and ask them to register and many of us are registered us nice so uh talk about how this organization plans to sustain perhaps another 100 years in uh serving black people in the struggle in the advancement it's interesting it requires volunteerism for instance uh at our Branch Milwaukee Branch we have one paid staff person that's our office manager everyone else volunteers and there are over 24 standing committees like the education committee housing committee uh Freedom fund dinner committee for that matter and everyone volunteered because they want to give something back to the community or to our people that's in need so talk about the freedom fund dinner you were talking about it earlier You' mentioned it a few times but uh what are some of the details around that and how does it help specifically in what the N ACP is doing well this year we're blessed for instance uh we were told about this German word Ze G it's the spirit of the times and the spirit of the times we're looking at voting as we talked about and we're looking at KLA Harris perhaps as our next president first female president now we were visited by her brother-in-law Tony um West he's an attorney for her campaign and he came in to talk to us about what were some of the things we could do as far as canvas and reaching uh those that are marginal voters but on the other hand when we look at the freedom fund dinner we we're being blessed this year because we have Hakeem jeffris who is the house Speaker minority speaker for Congress of the United States knowing that uh it's marginal in terms of what we have to put out funds to get him here we'll have something to sustain us for another year because we the only branch in the state of Wisconsin with an office all right and just really quickly if people want to learn more volunteer where can they find more information they can find information on our website which is n aacp m k.org that's our website then they can also email the office n aacp m k o r gmail.com or call us 414 562 1000 Mr Nicholas thank you so much for being here on black new B [Music]