July 7, 2014
Black Policy Group Vows to Rescue Joint Center
By Hazel Trice Edney
The National Policy Alliance, seen here meeting with President Obama on Feb. 8, 2011, has reformed to undergird the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. PHOTO: Pete Souza/White House
Tuskegee Mayor Johnny Ford, NPA founding co-chair
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The National Policy Alliance (NPA), a coalition of thousands of Black elected officials and public policy executives, founded more than 40 years ago under the leadership of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, has recommitted to restoring the Joint Center’s historic political research wing, which is currently dormant due to a lack of funds.
“The whole idea now is for the Joint Center to begin to utilize this constituency group and we’re going to rely upon the Joint Center like we used to do for research and statistics and support and that kind of thing,” said Tuskegee, Ala. Mayor Johnny Ford, a founding chair of the NPA. “I’m back now as mayor of the historic Tuskegee, Alabama. I am now going to devote some time to rebuilding this organization to the level that it once was.”
Ford said the NPA, which represents at least 12,000 elected officials, had gone through a period of inactivity for the past several years although it met with President Barack Obama at the White House twice, most recently on Feb. 8, 2011, to discuss policy issues. He said he aims to re-establish that relationship as well as undergird and revive the political arm of the Joint Center.
The Trice Edney News Wire confirmed last month that the Joint Center’s once powerful political think tank has been defunct for at least five months and that the center is now mainly focused on health issues. David Bositis, its long time researcher of Black politics and election statistics, was among at least seven staffers who left the center last spring due to the lack of funding. The current interim president, Spencer Overton – on sabbatical from his law professorship at George Washington University - is working without a salary.
Ford said he has met with Overton to reestablish an agreement through a memorandum of understanding. According to the memo, “The NPA began in early 1970s under the leadership and direction of the Joint Center. The earlier organizational name was the National Policy Institute. NPA members have convened every four years, at the beginning of each Presidential election year, to discuss public policies and issues that serve the interests and needs of the African American community.”
Ford and other principals of the Joint Center and NPA who were interviewed during the Center’s annual fundraising dinner June 25 conceded that the dinner alone would not be enough to rebuild the political arm upon which the Joint Center was founded 44 years ago in 1970 to increase Black political participation. But, Ford appeared confident that fund-raising for the Center will be bolstered by the revitalized alliance, which is made up of nine Black public policy organizations.
The member organizations are: Blacks in Government; Congressional Black Caucus; Judicial Council of the National Bar Association; National Association of Black County Officials; National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials; National Black Caucus of School Board Members; National Black Caucus of State Legislators; National Conference of Black Mayors; World Conference of Mayors, and the Joint Center.
The annual dinner, held in a Downtown D.C. hotel, drew hundreds of political insiders and elected officials, including heads of the nine NPA organizations, plus more than a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“For over forty years, they have provided the intellectual capital that makes policy possible,” Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said of the Joint Center. “Having that information and documentation really helps make policy. They are not relegated to sound bites and slogans, but real solid information.”
Given economic and social disparities that remain, Darlene Young, president of Blacks in Government, said, “We need [the research arm of the Joint Center] more now than ever before.”
The Center’s Immediate Past President Ralph Everett was a dinner program honoree as well as U. S. Sen. Cory Booker, who received the coveted Louis E. Martin Great American Award. Everett, who resigned effective Dec. 31 last year, was reluctant to answer questions about the organization’s finances. But he stressed the necessity of the political arm. “The Joint Center is the only organization that does the kind of tracking that we do in that area. So, I’m very hopeful that it would come back, but again that’s a decision by the board of governors,” Everett said.
Board member Dr. Dianne Pinderhughes, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame, would only say that the future of the political arm is “something that the board will have to discuss in the coming weeks.” She also said the board would probably know the direction by the end of this year. Neither Pinderhughes; nor Ford would give a dollar amount needed to rebuild and sustain the political think tank.
Overton made an impassioned plea to members of the audience to contact the Joint Center to support: “This is a time of great transition and the Joint Center is not immune,” he said. The audience applauded strongly when he added, “But, I am also convinced more than ever that there is a need for a Joint Center.”
Ford, a legendary mayor of Tuskegee, who was first elected in 1972 as the city’s first Black mayor, served six consecutive terms before being elected to the Alabama House of Representatives. He was re-elected mayor in 2004 and then again in 2012 giving him an eighth non-consecutive term as mayor.
He indicates he will fight for the Joint Center with that same determination: “The Joint Center is going to be alright. We have renewed this relationship. We met with Overton, told him that we want to work with the Center. ‘We want to be your constituency group. You can use us to give you the credibility you need to say to corporate America that I need X number of dollars,” he said. “I know. It’s serious. But we’re going to overcome all of that.”