Winning the prize for Weirdest Front Page Story of the Week is the Tuesday Washington Post story on the NAACP spreading out to all colors – in the Maine State Prison. So now it’s the National Association for the Advancement of Criminals and Prisoners?
Post reporter Krissah Williams described the scene as NAACP leader Benjamin Todd Jealous surveyed the troops: "White face after white face, inmate after inmate -- a sea of white men with few exceptions. Here they are: the Maine State Prison Chapter of the NAACP."
With a stagnant black membership level, Jealous is seeking a more "inclusive" approach:
Though the organization has 2,200 chapters, Jealous has taken a special interest in this Maine group because of the NAACP's ongoing attempts to reach beyond its core in the black community. The association's membership has been stagnant at about half a million members for years, and part of Jealous's plan to increase that number is to be more inclusive.
He has formed an alliance around health-care reform with the country's largest Latino advocacy group, and in recent speeches has highlighted examples of diversity in the NAACP's ranks: the Bangladeshi chapter president in Hamtramck, Mich.; the Southeast Asian presidents in Seattle and San Jose; the Latino executive committee members in the Southwest; the Native American members in Alabama and Oklahoma.
More than any other example, though, the Maine prison chapter has become a kind of symbol of the 100-year-old civil rights group finding its way on the shifting terrain of race. Jealous talks about the chapter frequently, and as he deals with questions about the organization's relevance since Barack Obama was elected to the White House, he has returned here again and again.
"Colored people come in all colors," proclaimed Jealous. The star of the Thompson piece is the white president of the prison chapter, a murderer who's been the subject of a Hollywood movie treatment:
The man Jealous is talking to is William "Billy" Flynn, who is in for 28 years to life and is also president of the prison chapter. "All right, gentlemen," Flynn says, stepping to the microphone.
A poster of Malcolm X delivering his "By Any Means Necessary" speech is affixed to the front of the lectern. A cinder block wall is covered in fliers that read: "NAACP You Have the Right to Vote" and posters of Obama, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali. In more than a dozen posters, no one is white.
"There's some confusion when people see an Irish guy as president of the NAACP chapter," Flynn says later. "I've had my fair share of comments."
Standing behind the poster of Malcolm X, Flynn talks about what he considers the lack of rights for prisoners. Sentenced at 16 after pleading guilty to a highly publicized New Hampshire murder, Flynn, now 35, has spent his adult life behind bars. He did not know anything about the NAACP when he arrived and is surprised to learn that he is one of the few whites leading an organization chapter.
In fact, Flynn was talked into murdering the husband of 23-year-old schoolteacher Pamela Smart -- the inspiration for the Nicole Kidman movie To Die For (Joaquin Phoenix played the Flynn part.) His vice president explains the appeal of NAACP behind bars:
Joseph "JJ" Jackson -- the chapter's vice president, who is black -- was locked up in May 1995 and knows Flynn well. "This is a black organization, but you have that felon beside your name and that makes you a minority," he says. "You're treated like you're black. Frankly, everybody needs civil rights here."
