CHARLOTTE — The 116th NAACP National Convention returned to Charlotte for the first time since 1996 last week. This year’s theme, The Fierce Urgency of Now, addressed current challenges faced by the organization and the country as a whole, and showcased new technologies to level the playing field for people of color.
“There has never been a time in our generation where it is more important to take power back into our own hands and really see what we want to see in the world we live in,” Vanessa Mbonu, vice president of marketing at the NAACP, told Channel 9.
The goal of the convention was to exchange ideas and encourage collaboration.
“Our future is going to be brighter because of organizations like the NAACP,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said Monday morning at the Charlotte Convention Center in Uptown.
Founded in 1909, the organization has been working to ensure the equality of minority group citizens of the United States and eliminate race prejudice for over a century.
Following the 1908 Springfield Race Riot that resulted in the lynching of two Black men, a call was issued for a meeting to discuss racial justice in the United States. Over 60 people attended, including Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell -- and the NAACP was born.
While some of the nation’s current issues may look different than the ones that catalyzed the founding of the NAACP, their message remains the same — to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Bobby J. Pierson, first vice president of the Shelby County, Alabama, NAACP, said he hopes the convention will help inspire unity and bring about change in the country.
The NAACP said it wants to give attendees the tools to continue the ongoing fight for civil rights into the 21st century, and panels were held throughout the convention. This theme carried on through Monday’s plenary, which focused in-part on defending democracy and civil rights and the use of technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence, as a tool for progress and justice.
Current Events
The first session featured three United States representatives — Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, and Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi.
The discussion focused on the threat to birthright citizenship and the urgency of protecting citizenship rights.
“If they break the 14th Amendment, it harms all of us,” Underwood said. “There is, in my opinion, no more urgent message that we have to get out to our communities than that we cannot be stopped on the value of citizenship.”
Underwood said citizenship is under threat right now. President Donald Trump, in the beginning of the year, signed an executive order that would deny citizenship to a child born on U.S. soil to a non-citizen parent.
Trump wasn’t invited to this year’s NAACP convention, the first time the organization didn’t extend an invite to the sitting president.
Channel 9 reached out to the North Carolina Republican Party for comment on Underwood’s statements. A spokesperson said in a statement: “The radical Left Democrats are making these outrageous, false claims for no reason other than their reflexive opposition to President Trump and the America First agenda. It’s telling that their party has fought harder for criminal illegal aliens than American families.”
The speakers emphasized the importance of community mobilization, education, and legal action, especially in a time marked by online disinformation and AI technology, making it hard to discern what’s true from what isn’t.
“We got work to do,” Clarke said. “We’ve got to educate, we’ve got to inform, and we’ve got to mobilize our people.”
The conversation also covered the economic impact of current policies, including healthcare cuts and federal job losses, and the importance of direct engagement with elected officials.
Underwood said now is the time for direct conversations with local representatives.
When the speakers were asked about the current state of democracy in the United States and whether it should be protected or replaced with something new, each speaker had the same response. They are not ready to give up on American democracy.
“Understand that for me, democracy is freedom, and yes, it has never been perfect,” Clark said. “It certainly has not reached the promised land for all of us, but we have an opportunity, folks, this is the 21st Century, and we have children and grandchildren that deserve to have the American dream.”
Can AI be a ‘force for good?’
But what will that American dream look like as we leap into an unprecedented age of technology, marked by the rapid advancement of AI? Cliff Worley, head of portfolio marketing with Kapor Capital and author of AI newsletter, Cliff Notes, hosted a session during the NAACP National Convention to share tips and recommendations for the best and latest AI software to use.
From graphic design and social media to writing and video editing, Worley shared 26 AI tools that are evolving quickly and changing the way we interact with technology.
Worley recommended carving out time to familiarize yourself with this emerging technology.
“Every time you learn a tool, it’s saving you a whole lot more time,” he said.
Worley believes AI is the future, and it’s coming fast. He quoted Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, saying, “It’s not that the future is going to happen so fast, it’s that the past happened so slow.”
However, not everyone is as eager to embrace AI as Worley -- at least, not without limitations.
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins says she is not the “hope person” when it comes to AI.
She is a technology entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Promise — a California-based technology company that partners with government agencies and utility companies to digitize and streamline infrastructure, like payments, compliance monitoring, and service reconnections.
Ellis-Lamkins asked herself, amid all of the swift innovation, if technology could be a force for good.
She concluded that it can only be a force for good, especially for people of color and working-class citizens, if you control how it’s created.
So she started a company staffed by people of color to “build a government people deserve,” by letting government and technology work for the people.
“Institutions are fundamentally changing, and the best way for me to be of service is to be able to build technology,” Ellis-Lamkins said.
She makes the case for diverse representation in the field of technology to ensure access to future advancements for all.
“Technology should fundamentally be making your life better,” she said. “It should be making it higher quality, and it should actually work to be able to make people believe in public institutions.”
The 117th NAACP National Convention will be held in Chicago in the summer of 2026, exactly 100 years after the convention first made its way to the city.
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