After what seems like forever, the National NAACP Office has given the nod to the Philadelphia NAACP Office that they can hold an election, the third week in July of 2021. An exact date has not yet been announced. For the last almost 12 months, the Philly chapter has been like a chapter without a home, even though they still have their office on Germantown Avenue. Allow me to recap what happened.
Last August 2020, Minister Rodney Muhammad, who has been the local chapter president for almost 8-years, put a post on Facebook that depicted someone who appeared to have Jewish features, holding down or holding back a group of what appears to be African American people. According to Minister Rodney, it was a cartoon. Well, that cartoon incensed quite a few people in the Jewish community and leaders of several well-known Jewish organizations along with other leaders such as Mayor James Kenney, City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, PA State Senator Anthony Williams and some other elected officials called for Rodney Muhammad to resign. For his part, Minister Rodney did apologize. He said if he offended anyone, that was not his intent. However, it seems his apology was not good enough. There were still cries for his resignation. Minister Rodney was quoted as saying he would ultimately do whatever the national office of the NAACP wanted him to do. Thus at the end of the day, he did not resign. But things weren’t the same anymore over at the local office.
We had two things happening. We had Minister Rodney Muhammad appearing to be silenced, albeit he remained in his position as President. We didn’t hear from him anymore. He wasn’t calling any more press conferences, leading any more marches, or being visible in any way. At the same time, however, the Coronavirus pandemic was raging and like of the rest of the world, the NAACP office on Germantown Avenue, for all intents and purposes, was pretty much closed down for public health concerns.
Catherine (Cathy) Hicks, a member of the Executive Board of the Philadelphia Chapter, shared that while it may have looked like the NAACP office was closed for good, it was not. “People have to remember that the NAACP is a volunteer organization. The volunteers you see working in the office and coming out to meetings and sitting at tables and events, winter, summer, spring, and fall are not getting paid. There are no salaries. They show up because of their passion to help people who are being racially profiled or face some other legal injustice, etc. When the worst of COVID-19 was still hitting hard, we had a small core group of volunteers who took turns calling the office and listening to voicemail messages, turning those messages over to the proper people within the chapter, and having concerns addressed. The same for emails. Daily, we had a small group that, on various days, checked the emails that came into our NAACP email address and answered those emails. We didn’t just quit and give up.”
An active member of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP for more than fifteen years, it was about two months ago that Cathy Hicks says she decided she was going to step out and run for president. She commented, “I reached out to Rodney Muhammad and had a conversation with him about what my thoughts were. I wanted to see where his head was in terms of a local chapter election. I also reached out to Sheriff Rochelle Bilal because for so many years she was a member of the Executive Board of the local chapter. She also held the position of Secretary for quite a few years, and I welcomed her feedback. She was and is in full support of my run. It was also important to me to have a conversation with Bishop J. Louis Felton because he was the most recent past 1st Vice President of the Philadelphia NAACP, and if he wanted to run for President, many people might feel like it was “his time.”
Hicks continued, “Bishop Felton gave me his nod of approval, and he let me know that he planned to run for 1st Vice President again. Bishop Felton has two other critical organizations where he expects to be in a senior position, upcoming, so his cup runneth over, so to speak. With Bishop Felton on my ticket and Prince Melvin Johnakin on my ticket as 2nd Vice President, along with some other strong candidates for 3rd Vice President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer, and Parliamentarian, with some focused campaigning, a solid message and a viable plan on how to make the NAACP front and center in the minds of people from the African American community once more, we have a good chance of bringing home a win.
Catherine Hicks continued, “Our city is in crisis and has been for a while now. Philadelphia needs every single person in this city to join us NOW in creating a city that is equitable, open to all, and fair. As President of the NAACP Philadelphia Chapter, I will work with anyone, anywhere. If it means we can prevent more lives lost to violence, create opportunities for our youth to thrive economically, and ensure families have the vital resources they need and the education they deserve. This does not mean we won’t hold people to account when they let us down or fail in their responsibility. We will speak out. There has to be accountability if we are to move Philadelphians forward.
Bishop J. Louis Felton shared, “The time is now for the NAACP of Philadelphia. Never has the need for our collective and unified voice been more urgently necessary the now. The time is now for reconciliation and healing. We have weathered a serious and deadly pandemic, yet a spiritual pandemic is upon our doorstep. The real issue is not whether we are faced with crises; the real issue is, are we together as a people?”
You must have a membership to the NAACP, at least 30 days before the Philadelphia Chapter NAACP election in order to vote. You must be a Philadelphia resident. If you try to do your membership online, at this point, the paperwork won’t be back in time in order for you to vote. We recommend that completed membership forms be hand-delivered to the Philadelphia NAACP office located at 4458-B Germantown Avenue, Phila. 19140. Put your envelope through the mail slot if no volunteers are in the office when you stop by. The phone number is 215-455-1011.
Since late August of 2020, the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP has been in a “holding” pattern. Minister Rodney Muhammad, who served as the President for almost 8-years, came under fire last summer after a post he made on Facebook. It offended some in the Jewish community. While Muhammad apologized for the post, saying he didn’t recognize the post as racist, that’s the way some took it, and there was an outcry for him to step down. Ultimately Rodney Muhammad did not re-sign. Unfortunately, his leadership position was so diluted, and things haven’t been the same since. Cathy Hicks says she ready and prepared to lead.
Cathy Hicks comes into her candidacy for president with a wealth of NAACP leadership experience from being on a number of the Committees as Chair, and from having attended numerous PA State NAACP conferences and National NAACP conferences. Cathy Hicks says she is prepared and ready to lead the Philadelphia Chapter forward.
In her professional life, Cathy Hicks has worked in public relations for several entities, including the Philadelphia Sheriff’s office in past years. For the last 20 years, she worked as an Assistant Editor at the Philadelphia Sunday Sun Newspapers. Upon the passing of her fiancée’, J. Wyatt Mondesire (Founder of the Sunday Sun Newspaper and a past President of the Philadelphia Chapter of the NAACP) she was named Publisher and Co-Owner of the newspaper; which she been successfully operating for the last six years.
