REV. DR. T. ANTHONY SPEARMAN
SPEARMAN FACED BITTER
NC NAACP ADVERSARIES
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It was two months ago this week, on July 19th, that Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman’s body was found in his basement near a pool of his own blood. Guilford County authorities investigating the case have said precious little since then - giving no cause of, or reason for the death - and those who knew the former NC NAACP president and respected him, are still wondering why.
But not everyone liked or respected Rev. Dr. Theodore Anthony Spearman, something he was so keenly aware of when he took the mantle of leadership from his predecessor and friend, Rev. Dr. William Barber in Oct. 2017.
“There are some of us who are in here tonight, who did their best to divide us, and cause a whole lot of hatred to permeate the NCNAACP,” Rev. Spearman, then third vice president elected NC NAACP president, admonished his detractors during his acceptance speech after defeating Raleigh’s Rev. Portia Rochelle. “And I’m here to tell you all that I will not stand for that on my watch! You know who you are, and I want you to know that I know who you are too!”
Beyond the NC NAACP it was not widely known, but Spearman had inherited many of the internal adversaries Rev. Barber had garnered. Adversaries who had problems with Rev. Barber’s direction and style of leadership for the state’s oldest civil rights organization, didn’t like Barber building a large multi-racial, multi-generational progressive coalition on which to build a successful North Carolina, and later, national social justice movement on.
In 2017, when Rev. Barber stepped aside to be succeeded by Rev. Spearman, Barber’s adversaries became Spearman’s enemies, primarily because he promised to continue the direction Rev. Barber had been taking the NC NAACP in.
To say that the NC NAACP under Rev. Barber was wildly successful in pushing the social justice envelope in North Carolina from 2005 to 2017 is an understatement. People from all walks of life were joining, financial donations were pouring in, important voting rights litigation was being won, and the press took events like Moral Mondays and Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HK on J) seriously as thousands of demonstrators, led by Rev. Barber, marched on the NC General Assembly to demand justice for all.
That kind of powerful, successful social justice movement developed jealousies from both inside the NC NAACP, and even from the national office, which wanted a piece of that success, but Rev. Barber refused to bend to its terms.
And Rev. Spearman was right there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
So when Rev. Barber finally left, Rev. Spearman had to fight enemies willing to destroy him, enemies he would later file a defamation/civil conspiracy lawsuit against.
One NAACP chapter president had alleged that Spearman was allowing a new chapter to be established in her county without her involvement or approval. She accused him of ignoring her concerns.
Earlier this year after he filed his lawsuit, Rev. Spearman sent this reporter a copy of a letter she sent to NC NAACP membership across the state, which read in part:
“In all of my years ministering to murderers, rapists and people who had committed other heinous crimes. I can say that I have never met anyone as hateful as our seated President," she wrote of Rev. Spearman.
"The backstabbing and undermining I have endured is reprehensible."
“Mr. Spearman has violated the NAACP constitution and Bylaws. He recklessly enlisted individuals to collect funds for memberships for a "new" unapproved ...chapter. The NAACP National made it very clear that he was out of order. He has not stopped!
He does not exemplify the characteristics to lead anyone. He has been divisive, destructive, narcissistic and deceptive.”
Rev. Spearman told this reporter that this was an example of the “hate” that he was experiencing.
As previously reported, another NC NAACP chapter president allegedly threatened to physically assault Spearman at the opening of the 2019 NC NAACP Convention in Winston-Salem at a church, so much so that numerous police officers were called to the scene, and came back the following the day for security when the convention activity moved to a local hotel.
At that same convention, NAACP Pres. CEO Derrick Johnson flew in and held a mass meeting, where he allegedly lambasted the state leadership for allowing a young youth director to go public with her sexual harassment allegations against a NC NAACP executive officer and employee, Rev. Curtis Gatewood, allegations he denied. But after an investigation, Spearman backed the young woman, later finding himself the target of fiscal mismanagement allegations from other NC NAACP executive officers that were never proven.
Gatewood had been suspended.
It was then that Johnson, with the backing of the national NAACP Board, assigned two administrators to oversee the operations of the NC NAACP.
To Rev. Spearman, per his lawsuit, Johnson would later work with several NC NAACP members to sabotage his leadership because Spearman supported the alleged sexual harassment victim. That “unruly caucus”, as Spearman called them, were named defendants in his lawsuit.
After he lost re-election in October 2021 (Rev. Spearman did not have to run for re-election in 2019 because the national office removed his opponent from membership), he alleged a corrupted election process that resulted in his loss. Spearman demanded that the national office investigate, and vowed not to turn over any documentation from his office until an official probe was completed, but that was eventually denied.
Rev. Dr. Spearman was eventually suspended in February, 2022. In June, he filed his defamation/civil conspiracy lawsuit against six members of the NC NAACP, national NAACP/CEO Pres. Johnson and national NAACP Board Chairman Leon Russell.
He claimed that the defendants conspired to have him removed from office because of his support for the alleged sexual harassment victim, and because of his ‘growing national profile stemming from his many successful and high profiled activities on behalf of the… NC NAACP.”
The following month, on July 19th, Rev. Dr. Spearman was found dead in his home, with no word as to what happened or why.
By the next day, a vicious rumor was being spread that Rev. Spearman allegedly tried to sexually assault a 22-year-old male a week earlier who tried to rob him at gunpoint, and the NC NAACP secretary sent an email out to statewide membership alleging that Spearman may have committed suicide.
To this day, there has been no evidence that either allegation was true.
Nor is there any evidence linking any NC NAACP member to the death of Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman.
With no answers, the.community waits for investigators to complete they job.But Rev. Dr. Spearman is not forgotten.
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VOTER I.D. CASE TO BE
HEARD BY NC SUPREME
COURT NEXT MONTH
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
To the average citizen it all might be understandably very confusing, but for those keeping track, the NC Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in yet another case challenging voter photo identification, Holmes v. Moore. Those arguments will take place on October 3rd, and focus on the constitutionality of the 2018 voter photo I.D. law.
“In light of the great public interest in the subject matter of this case, the importance of the issues to the constitutional jurisprudence of this State, and the need to reach a final resolution on the merits at the earliest possible opportunity, … [t]his case shall be scheduled for oral argument as soon as practicable, on a date to be determined during arguments scheduled the week of 3 October 2022, or by special setting no later than 18 October 2022,” according to the order.
What makes this session interesting is the Democrats on the state’s High Court voted 4-3 to hear the case rather quickly, taking it away from the GOP-dominated NC Court of Appeals, so that a decision could be rendered before the end of the year.
A three-judge Wake Superior Court panel previously ruled 2-1 in September 2021 that the voter I.D. law discriminated against African-American voters. When that decision was appealed to the Republican controlled appellate court, the state Supreme Court grabbed it instead.
By holding arguments weeks before the Nov. 8th 2022 midterm elections, that means the case will be considered by the four Democrat justice majority. One of those Democrat justices,Robin Hudson, is retiring.
The other, Associate Justice Sam Ervin IV is up for re-election.
Republicans have targeted both seats in November. All they have to do is win just one to take the majority on the state Supreme Court in January.
Not surprisingly, Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby, representing the Republican court minority, argued that the voter I.D. law appeal did not have to be heard so quickly because there was “no jurisprudential reason” for doing so, and a decision may confuse voters.
The voter I.D. law will not be in effect for the November 8th midterm elections, but a decision by the end of the year will impact the 2024 elections..
If the High Court’s quick movements weren’t already catching attention, Democrats there have also decided to hear arguments pertaining to the constitutionality of the latest state legislative and congressional redistricting maps on Oct. 4th, the very next day.
A decision from that case is also expected by the end of the year.
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CONNECTION BETWEEN REVERSE
FREEDOM RIDES AND IMMIGRANTS
BUSED UP NORTH
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
“A negro couple and their eight children were placed on a Trenton-bound bus in Shreveport, La. this morning by the White Citizens Council of Louisiana,” a Trenton, N.J. newspaper story from the early 1960’s titled “Reverse Freedom Ride: Negro Family on the Way Here” reported.
The family had been given free bus tickets, $75.00 in "pocket money," and “a dozen cans of sardines to snack upon” for the trip. As far as the Black family were concerned, they were leaving the deep, racist South for a better life.
The story continued, “The family of Alan Gilmore - the first “reverse Freedom Riders” to this city - were scheduled to arrive at the Perry Street bus terminal here at 4:20 a.m on Sunday. The children range in age from eight months to 10 years.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation, “white segregationists throughout the South created the White Citizens Councils [WCC],” according to King Encyclopedia. “These local groups typically drew a more middle and upper class membership than the Ku Klux Klan and, in addition to using violence and intimidation to counter civil rights goals , they sought to economically and socially oppress blacks.”
These racist WCCs also tricked unsuspecting Black families with promises of employment, housing and better lives up North. All they had to do was voluntarily get on the buses headed North, and be dropped off. At least 100 black families took the offer, and thus, “reverse Freedom Rides” were born. It was the South’s callous way of responding to the 1960’s Freedom Rides by White and Black activists from the North to the South to integrate interstate bus travel.
Large Black fatherless families and Black men with criminal records were selectively bused from deep Southern states to places like Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, where liberal Democrat President John F. Kennedy had a summer home.
The goal was to shove civil rights back in the face of white liberals like Kennedy.
“We have put up with millions of niggers for 100 years, so why should you squawk?” stated an anonymous letter from down South to Northern officials when the Black families arrived.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “ It is an indictment on America and democracy that these ungodly and unethical and un-Christian and unAmerican councils have been able to exist …”
Fast forward to 2022, as the Republican governors of Texas, Arizona and Florida have seemingly taken a page from the White Citizens Councils of sixty-years ago, busing well over 10,000 brown asylum seekers to Northern Black-run Democrat cities like Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago, using empty promises of housing and job opportunities to lure them onto the buses.
In the case of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, he chartered two private planes from San Antonio, Texas to fly 50 immigrants to liberal-run Martha’s Vineyard, catching that island’s officials off-guard.
By doing so, legal experts say DeSantis may have broken federal law.
The Republican governors have rhetorically used the same line as did White Citizens Councils of the past to explain their controversial actions - “We’ve put up with 2 million illegals crossing the U.S.- Mexico border thanks to the Biden Administration, so why should you squawk?”
Two busloads of Venezuelan immigrants from Texas, including a one month-old baby, were dropped off in front of the Vice Pres. Kamala Harris’ Washington, D.C. home. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border,” stated Gov. Abbott a tweet. Those immigrants were taken to a local church.
In an interview, Vice Pres. Harris said, “…[Abbott and DeSantis are] playing games, adding that "these are political stunts with real human beings who are fleeing harm."
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot saw another two busloads from Texas arrive last week, and called Gov. Abbott “unAmerican.”
“What he’s trying to do is play to the lowest common denominator in his party, to burnish his credentials as a candidate for president in 2024,” Lightfoot told CNN.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is considering legal action against Gov. Abbott.
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