A year after NAACP reset, what is Columbus chapter doing? Meet President L.K. Pendleton
After all of the NAACP Columbus branch officers were ordered to vacate their positions last May, the civil rights organization has been working to restore its mission and purpose under new leadership.
New officers were sworn in last September following a special election, several months after the national NAACP board cleaned house. The order came at the recommendation of James Gallman, who was appointed administrator of the Columbus branch after chronic fighting and accusation among the members jeopardized its reputation.
Gallman said in April 2018 that an internal audit of the Columbus branch cleared then-President Tonza Thomas and all other officers of any financial impropriety after it was alleged she misused funding and disregarded bylaws and procedures.
But when issues persisted, a change in leadership was prescribed, ushering in a new president.
Rev. Dr. L.K. Pendleton, who has been pastor at St. Mary’s Road United Methodist Church in Columbus for the past six years, said she didn’t know anything about the environment of the local branch until someone asked her to run for the president’s seat.
This is the first time she has held an office in the NAACP.
“Somebody felt I had a set of skills that would allow me to re-establish the NAACP, and I guess you could say that as a pastor, and dealing with all kinds of people, and because my church is involved in a lot of work that deals with human rights and human life, I have been involved with civil rights,” Pendleton said.
Pendleton said other elected officers include Ralph Huling as first vice president, March Konan as second vice president, Melvin Tanner as third vice president, Wane Hailes as secretary, Faith Stephen as assistant secretary, Willy Wells as treasurer and Rev. Dr. Ivelisse Quinones as assistant treasurer.
Moving forward
After nearly a year at the helm, Pendleton said she doesn’t dwell on past issues with the Columbus branch.
“I don’t like to talk about what happened in the past. I think God helped the former administration to fulfill whatever the mission was then, but because of our new administration, we want to move forward with faith, focus and renewed sense of unity,” she said. “We want to be about the business of educating our community on the need for aggressive civic engagement and be a progressive voice for change in our community.”
Having grown up mostly in Anniston, Alabama, Pendleton said her older sisters set an example for her as they would often sneak out of their home to march with other freedom fighters.
“They were interested in desegregating the eating establishments in Anniston,” she said. “My sister Beverly took a dare to drink from a whites-only water fountain at a store. She did it. When my other sister asked her ‘how did the water taste?’ she said ‘it tasted no differently than ours.’ That was a beautiful moment for me, to hear that story. I guess she was prophetic in setting my destiny in 2018.”
Organizational goals
The organization has established three fundamental strategic goals, Pendleton said:
To increase visibility: “It’s very important for us to revitalize the Columbus branch by increasing our visibility among the public and private sectors of the community,” she said. “With the last administration, what happened was I think people lost their trust in the NAACP, so what we want to do is reconnect with our old partners and build new partnerships with people in our community.”
To reinvigorate membership: “We have a lot of aging local activists and we need young people to help us move this mission along,” Pendleton said. “We also want those members who fell along the way to know that they can trust us.”
The organization is currently “scrubbing” a roster of around 400 members, she said.
To mobilize voters: “Given what happened during our last governor’s race: we got problems with the whole voter registration thing,” she said. “We got to re-energize our voting mobilization within our community. We got to conduct voter mobilization workshops. We’ve got to make sure people’s voting statuses are current and get into some of these smaller counties and register people to vote.”
Advocacy work
She also wants to make sure that she’s not the only face of the organization as it works to advocate criminal justice reform and serve a watchdog function for the community.
The local branch has no paid staff right now, and the office on 12th Street is run by volunteers.
“Everybody is responsible for mobilizing and making sure that this works,” she said. “While the president is responsible for moving the organization forward, the president must also involve all the officers and the different executive committee members. We’re learning how to work together and sharing the work and collaborating so that we’re operating in unity and on one accord.”
Pendleton said the Columbus branch is currently advocating to have two Columbus criminal cases overturned, including the case of Johnny Lee Gates, who was 21 in 1977 when he was tried and convicted of murdering a soldier’s wife in her downtown Columbus apartment the year before.
Judge John Allen ruled earlier this year that DNA tests may exonerate Gates and that prosecutors showed “systemic race discrimination” in picking an all-white jury for Gates’ trial.
The case is scheduled to go before the Georgia Supreme Court August 20, Pendleton said, and she will be there.
“There are a lot of African Americans that I am learning who were tried by these courts that were given an unfair trial,” Pendleton said.
The NAACP’s work is not limited to African Americans, Pendleton said.
“I am about righting wrongs; it’s not about a matter of race to me per se, it’s a matter of working on behalf of those who have been oppressed by a system of injustice,” she said. “So if you blue, green, red, yellow, orange, I am working on behalf of the disinherited and the oppressed, those who do not have a voice for themselves. That’s what we are about.”
The NAACP will also soon be working to keep its eyes on community leaders and local civic issues.
“We are setting up watch groups in the near future to watch what happens in our court system, because there are no checks and balances in our court systems,” she said. “We have to look at what happens with city council to make sure city council is doing what city council is doing what it says it will do. And also the school board. Often times our officials forget they work for the people.”
Meetings of the NAACP Columbus chapter are open to the public and held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. the second Thursday of every month on the second floor of the Corporate Center, located at 233 12th Street.
Ledger-Enquirer archives were used in this report.