Activists Share Status of Civil Rights Movement

Activists shared lessons and support as people in Collier County and across the nation celebrated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and prepared to kickoff February’s Black History Month. 

Activist Angela Davis was the guest speaker at an event hosted nationally by SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice, which is an organization mobilizing predominantly white people to be involved in dispelling racism. She spoke of the importance of the conversation in southern states. 

“The most committed and most powerful antiracists are those who have experienced it and are familiar with it and are not afraid to acknowledge its existence and that would mean the South,” said Davis. 

To stay in the work for the long haul takes a sense of history, she added. 

Davis’s comments were poignant as SURJ of Southwest Florida has become inactive, said Rachel Bass, a former SURJ SWFL member.  

“I think that if we look back at the mistakes that movements have made historically, we get a better framework for understanding where we need to go during this period,” said Davis on January 15 during a nationwide Zoom call. 

When looking at the feminist movement, for example, initially some people avoided talking about race because it didn’t seem integral, Davis said.  

“It was precisely the work of largely women of color that has made the feminist movement as a whole stronger,” she said. 

People began to discuss the ideas of intersectionality, said Davis. Intersectionality is the overlapping of social identities. In the civil rights movement, this may include discussion of how the overlapping identities, such as race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, age, abilities, and gender, among other identities, relate to opportunities or oppression, domination, discrimination, and other social dynamics. 

Now, says Vincent Keeys, president of the Collier County NAACP, we are coming full circle, realizing again that the causes are becoming universal, from housing to economics, education, and the environment. We’re increasingly on common ground, he said. More people are going to be facing the same challenges, Keeys predicts.  

One of the shortcomings in the past, said Davis, was almost a watering down by trying to agree so much and narrow down to the least common denominator that the richness of diversity would get lost. 

“We need to change the narrative and find ways that we can come together,” said Davis.  

“It’s often times precisely our differences that bring a richness to our efforts to unify,” Davis added. 

To varying degrees, people who have been in the civil rights movement for a long time seem to understand this, she said. 

NAACP Vice President Barbara Melvin recently shared the importance of everyone in the civil rights movement.  

“Civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, we want everyone to live their own life. Everything you believe in individually, we want to support it. If you’re not out there doing anything bad, we support it,” said Melvin. 

Celebrating diversity was integral to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade and Celebration in Naples on January 20, which culminated with a large gathering at Cambier Park. Families discussed examples of prejudices they experienced within their own families, in addition to those in the broader society. In many cases, they discussed overcoming them. 

“I just love seeing everybody in the park. Black, white, Hispanic. Look up there on the stage at that all-white singing group,” said Melvin, as they sang to an audience consisting largely of people of color.  

The 28th Annual Martin Luther King Jr Day Celebration in Naples provided a needed sense of community, many attendees said. 

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else but here. I’m not usually one to say ‘divine intervention,' but it’s ironic Martin Luther King Jr. Day is on the same day as the inauguration. There is somebody up there, saying, ‘People, there is hope,’” said Cori Craciun, executive director of Naples Pride, an organization that advocates for civil rights, particularly among the LGBTQ+ community, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, among others.  

While many organizations have worked toward somewhat similar goals as King and the NAACP, the Collier County NAACP is a mainstay, said Keeys. 

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I admit that NAACP continues to be strong,” he said, adding that the organization was founded in 1909. 

Davis met King as a child, and in some ways, her activism evolved from King’s. 

Keeys said he foresees continued changes in the civil rights movement, just as there have been changes since the 60s, since King’s days. 

There was a resurgence of the civil rights movement again with Black Lives Matter after George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota in 2020, said Keeys. 

SURJ nationally was founded in 2009 following the backlash to the election of President Barack Obama, the first black president, and was directed at ending beliefs of white supremacy.  

SURJ Southwest Florida had an active group for five or six years, said Ellen Hemrick, a former member of SURJ Southwest Florida and one of the last who remained active.  

SURJ, like many civil rights groups, had a surge of membership activity in 2020 but fizzled out, leaving too few people doing the work, said Hemrick. 

By 2022, it was almost completely defunct, and now there is some hope it could pull back together eventually, said Bass. 

Occasionally, there may be a post to social media, she said. 

Part of the idea of the group was to take the pressure off people of color to teach antiracism to white people so that white people could do more of the antiracist work. 

Among the challenges was that many members were new to social justice. 

“Some were new to this and making mistakes. Some had their hands smacked. Some were embraced,” said Hemrick. 

Keeys said he supported SURJ and sympathized with SURJ's dissolving in recent years.  

“In this kind of work, you can get burned out after a while,” Keeys said.  

Former SURJ SWFL members are still supportive of the work of the NAACP. 

“We have come to learn we could not get the job done completely and of ourselves,” said Keeys.  

“There are some things better said by others, and there are some things we have to say for ourselves,” he said.  

Overall, though, the roles of all people are pretty much the same, said Keeys. 

Craciun described a recent setback for the LGBTQ+ community when Naples City Council voted 5-2 in January to keep drag shows at the annual Naples Pride Fest in June segregated from the rest of Cambier Park. Two of the City Council members didn’t support continuing the SeventhAnnual Pride event at all. 

“They’re segregating us. They’re taking a part of our community and shoving them back in the closet,” said Craciun. 

Drag performers are required to be inside without minors able to see them. 

The increasing opposition to Naples Pride may be a sign of what’s to come for other groups, activists warn. 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote in his Letters from a Birmingham Jail, where he was imprisoned in 1963 following nonviolent demonstrations opposing segregation. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly,” he continued.  

King was later assassinated in Tennessee in 1968. 

Keeys echoed King. 

“We will soon find ourselves on common ground in many areas when you talk about politics, economics, education,” Keeys said.  

Already, affordable housing is an example, Keeys added. 

“I think it’s very important we show up for one another,” said Craciun. “We’re all in the same fight for social justice for all, whether it’s the color of your skin or who you love,” she said.  

“I think it’s very important to celebrate that every chance we get,” she said.  

“That’s what gives me hope, is to see people show up from every walk of life,” said Craciun.