Dear Santa Cruz County Community,
As we process the outcome of the recent election, I want to reassure our community that our work at the NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch remains steadfast and resolute. No matter the results, our commitment to justice, equality, and the empowerment of our Black and marginalized communities will not waver. We will not be held back by fear or doubt. Instead, we will draw strength from the legacy of those who came before us those who faced adversity, stood firm in their beliefs, and laid the foundation for the progress we continue today.
In the days ahead, as uncertainty may weigh on our hearts, let us choose to look forward with hope and determination. We stand on the shoulders of those who have endured the trials of history and emerged stronger. Their courage fuels our own, reminding us that justice will prevail, and that the pursuit of equality is not only necessary but non-negotiable. It is at the forefront of all we do, guiding our unwavering efforts to ensure our community thrives.
As we continue our work, we will protect and uplift the civil rights and dignity of our Black community and all marginalized groups. We will advocate fiercely, hold leaders accountable, and push forward reforms that support the health, safety, education and prosperity of our people. Our resolve is strong because we know that the journey toward equality is built on resilience, unity, and the unyielding belief in a better tomorrow.
Attached is an inspiring message from my colleague and mentor UCSC Professor Emeritus Dr. John Brown Childs that calmed my spirit and energized me to keep moving forward. I hope you find comfort in it as well. In Dr. Childs words “Let us, by working together, agreeing to disagree, when necessary, keep our eyes on the prize of democracy; and reclaim lost political territory, with our compassionate vision and practical action, now and into 2026”.
In solidarity and with hope,
Elaine Johnson
President, NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch
For Compassionate Vision and Practical Action After the November 2024 Elections
John Brown Childs
We have suffered a major defeat with the election of Donald Trump, and Republican electoral victories. Like many of you, I am shocked by the scale of the loss. But, having been a participant in the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties I have experienced a time when we were hit by many losses and setbacks: the assassination of the NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers (1963); the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church Sunday School in Birmingham, that killed four little black girls, (1963);—the brutal murders of of three young civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (1964); and the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968). Such horrors were sources of deep despair and were moments of defeat and frustration. These, and the many other similar events, all done with absolute impunity by the perpetrators, undermined hope, and put even the smallest steps toward positive change for justice and equality, in danger of being seen as fantasy.
Yet, the many diverse activists of that era including the indomitable Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Jr. John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Hardy T. Frye, and thousands of others, never lost heart, nor did they loose their abiding faith in the importance of compassion in the struggle for equality and justice. Their courageous compassion kept them in movement. That movement consisted of hundreds of ways of practical organizing work. Such practical organizing produced the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” and the impactful Mississippi Freedom Summer voter education campaign (1964); as well as numerous sit-ins and ride-ins—all of which resulted in the astonishing dismantling of legal segregation from transportation systems, to schools, and in overall public access to the many venues of society. This movement was itself a vital step for the broadening circle of democratic inclusion, that has opened so many doors to millions of people from previously excluded, marginalized groups.
In two years we will have mid-term elections. We already have a hosts of pro-democracy individuals in place at all levels of government, and across the spectrum of social institutions. Yes, this is a moment of sadness. I have felt such sadness before, at many points in previous political moments. But the horrible setbacks, the losses, the frustrations, never stopped the compassionate vision and the practical efforts of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement and similar struggles. Let us cast despair aside, while following in the footsteps of all the positive pro-democracy movements in our history. As Kamala Harris said after the election, “The fight for the ideals that reflect America at its best, freedom, opportunity, fairness, and dignity; that is a fight I will never give up.”
Let us, by working together, agreeing to disagree when necessary, keep our eyes on the prize of democracy; and reclaim lost political territory, with our compassionate vision and practical action, now and into 2026.
John Brown Childs is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Sociology, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and voter rights work, as a member of the “Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)” in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. He has been volunteer-teaching courses on transcommunal peacemaking and cooperation in Soledad State prison for twenty years. He is a member of the Santa Cruz, NAACP, and a partner with the community organization Barrios Unidos.
Born in 1942, in a public housing project, in the Roxbury section of Boston, he is, from his mother's family side, an enrolled member of the Massachusett Tribe of Indigenous People at Ponkapoag; and is of African-Madagascan descent on his father's side.
