More State NAACP Hypocrisy

Rev. Curtis Gatewood served four terms as president of the Durham branch of the NAACP from 1994 until 2002, when he moved to Oxford, North Carolina. During that time, he distinguished himself with what the (pre-Bob Ashley) Herald-Sun termed “racist cant” on Durham issues and with extremist views on foreign policy. He urged black males serving in the Army to refuse to participate in the war in Afghanistan, bringing a rebuke from then-NAACP national president Kweisi Mfume.

Gatewood has resurfaced to denounce the North Carolina Bar Association for joining “the lynching mobs in Durham who have verbally lynched and sought to politically assassinate DA Mike Nifong” as part of a “conspiracy to disrupt justice in this Durham case should be obvious.” The media are participants in the conspiracy as well, since Gatewood contends that “it is unprecedented that the alleged criminals and/or their defense team will be given the luxury of such a high-media platform to repetitiously proclaim their ‘innocence’ and attack their prosecutor.”

The lesson of this case, in Gatewood’s words, is that “the racist media and NC Bar Association who wrongfully used their influence to attack the integrity of a prosecutor at the rare time he prosecutes a case which profoundly has the potential to challenge racism, classism, and sexism simultaneously.”

Former Nifong citizens’ committee co-chair Kim Brummell is also speaking out, claiming that “the allege [sic] victim” is receiving unfair treatment from the media, which needs to look harder at the accused players and their supporters, since “I bet plenty of skeletons would be falling out of their closets.”

Such views, no doubt, reflect NAACP legal redress committee chair Al McSurely’s claim that the state organization stands committed to fair treatment for “both sides.”