The multi-purpose building at Cherrystone Missionary Baptist Association in Ringgold was packed with about 500 people Saturday night for the Pittsylvania County Branch of the NAACP’s annual Freedom Fund Banquet.
Branches of the NAACP nationwide are celebrating the organization’s 100th anniversary this year with the theme “Bold Dreams – Big Victories.”
Area pastors and politicians greeted the crowd, with the Rev. Robert P. King Sr., of Mr. Airy Baptist Church, leading with the invocation.
Debra Brown, a member of the NAACP’s national board and president of Emporia Branch of the NAACP, was the guest speaker.
She gave the crowd a brief rundown of the organization’s history, and how the need for it grew even after the Emancipation Proclamation with signed in 1863.
Brown said about 3,000 African Americans were lynched in America between 1863 and 1909.
“These were freed Americans,” Brown said. “There was a need to make a stand.”
In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was born, but it still took a long time for things to change.
“Until 1949, in Virginia, lynching was still legal,” Brown said. “We’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
She encouraged everyone in attendance to work together to build stronger communities.
Life Members of the NAACP were recognized, and plaques were awarded to new Life Members. A number of awards recognitions were made, including a proclamation from the state honoring the life of Clyde Banks.
Sen. Robert Hurt brought the proclamation, which was patroned by him and delegates Danny Marshall, Don Merricks and Charles Poindexter. Banks, a Chatham resident who died last year, was recognized for his effort to improve the community and his work during the Civil Rights Movement.
The program ended with a benediction offered by the Rev. Anthony Pass of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Ringgold.
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