MUTUAL APPRECIATION HOLDER

Eric Holder came for lunch Monday … to the NAACP’s Clarence Mitchell Memorial Luncheon. To understand what Eric Holder means to this organization, one has to realize that many people crowding around the luncheon tables desegregated lunch counters. Here was the first African American U. S. Attorney General as keynote speaker, the man who may do the most to eliminate sentencing disparities and close the school-to-prison pipeline. Holder took this opportunity to remind his audience that while the Reconstruction Amendments made equality a fact, equality is not self-enforcing. We must all be part of building a more equitable system of justice. (What a difference to hear a Justice Department official talk about the importance of integrating former offenders back into communities!)

Personal responsibility was his guiding refrain. “Laws can guarantee access to education, but they cannot guarantee a child will pick up a book. That is the responsibility of their parent,” Holder said. To achieve full equality “all of us must take responsibility for ourselves, our choices and our futures….The next Century will be less about changing our laws and more about changing ourselves.”

Monday’s luncheon was a heartwarming display of the intersection between an organization and its supporters: The organization was proud to host Eric Holder and Eric Holder, who stands on the shoulders of those who literally slaved to make his rise to the highest legal office in America possible, was pleased to bring his young son to the NAACP. They were making a memory together. Perhaps one day we will live in peace and harmony and equality and there won’t be a need for a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.