IF YOU GO* What: Jubilee Day celebration* When: 11 a.m. Saturday* Where: Pilgrim Rock Baptist Church, 1726 Church Road* For more info: www.chattanooganaacp.org
Blacks have made major strides since slavery despite obstacles such as economic inequality, said the Rev. Timmy Sykes, pastor of Pilgrim Rock Baptist Church.
And on Saturday, the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation signing, blacks across the nation will celebrate those accomplishments, he said.
“In every area — religion, in corporations, with inventions — we as blacks have made major contributions, even now with Barack Obama being president,” Sykes said. “We never thought we’d see that.”
Sykes will be among the speakers for the NAACP’s annual Jubilee Day celebration set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Pilgrim Rock Baptist.
The NAACP has hosted the event for decades.
“When you forget your past, you have no path to the future,” said James Mapp, former branch president of the local NAACP.
Jubilee Day commemorates President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. The proclamation declared freedom for slaves in the states of the Confederacy.
The NAACP is among hundreds of organizations throughout the country hosting a Jubilee Day or Emancipation Day celebration.
“The purpose is to give recognition to the past and honor the present,” said Vincent Phipps, NAACP’s ACT-SO chairman who will host the event.
ACT-SO is the NAACP’s Academic, Cultural Technological and Scientific Olympics, a program that showcases the talents of black youths.
Former Chattanooga ACT-SO winners Vincent Hale and Gerald Woods will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
The local NAACP chapter also will have its installation of 2011 officers. ACT-SO Academic Gold Medal poetry winner Cordell Paruchuri, a senior at Brainerd High School, will read the Emancipation Proclamation.
“We’re going to have to hit some issues this year that we haven’t been covering,” said Hannah Martin, local member and chairwoman of the Tennessee State Conference Branches Women in the NAACP.
She said the local group plans to meet with the city’s new police chief to discuss community violence.
A lot of people are afraid to walk the streets or to sit on their porches, she said.
“We want to see the plan police have for stopping this,” she said.
Branch members also want to encourage more parent and community participation in schools. If more people volunteered to monitor halls and classrooms, that would free up teachers to teach instead of dealing with so many disciplinary issues, Martin said.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.