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NAACP tries a luxurious lure

Civil rights leaders hope a sunny retreat can draw in young affluent members to reinvigorate the organization.

By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS
Published May 27, 2005

[Times photos: Willie J. Allen Jr.]

NAACP convention organizer Rosyln M. Brock, 39, talks with 35-year-old Tanya Banks, center, during a dinner party Thursday at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin.

	After checking in for the NAACP convention on Thursday, Gwen Fisher, 41, of New Jersey leaves the reception desk headed for her room at the Sandestin Resort Hotel in Destin.

Florida's beaches will be the draw this weekend as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hosts a swanky retreat at a Destin resort to help boost its membership among affluent 30- to 40-year-olds.

With registration starting at $325, a golf tourney on Sunday and massages in between, the National Leadership 500 Summit that started Thursday and runs through Sunday likely will be an exclusive gathering of the country's young black elite.

And that's exactly what the NAACP is hoping for.

"I have issued a call to my peer group," said Roslyn Brock, 39, summit creator and vice chairwoman of the NAACP board of directors. "We want to reach in and pull them back into the organization and into the movement."

The NAACP has long been aware of a generation gap in its membership, with few members between 30 and 50. These "tweeners," as described by Brock, are lawyers, doctors, bankers and engineers who live a middle-class lifestyle and tend to have the disposable income, clout and power that could be harnessed to help effect social change as the NAACP approaches its 100th anniversary in 2009.

This weekend marks the kickoff of an initiative to recruit "tweener" members.

"We're talking middle class right now because these are the people benefitting," said Brock, a native Floridian. "We make no apologies for it. This is not an exclusive middle class event, but these are folks in corporate America who have cousins, family and friends who are falling through the cracks."

"Tweeners" work so hard at their jobs, families, churches and other professional groups that the NAACP falls by the wayside, said Hillsborough County NAACP member Curtis Stokes.

Still, membership tends to grow once people send their kids off to college, Brock said.

The NAACP's charge this weekend is to create an image inviting to people who have lived with more subtle forms of racism, like the glass ceiling or the illegal denial of housing loans.

The summit, held at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort, has been sold out with 400 registrants. If successful, organizers may make it annual.

Relaxation, however , will take a back seat to the workshops on reaching out to younger members, entrepreneurship and economic self-development.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and political strategist Donna Brazile will be panel speakers. Minister Ava Muhammad, spokesman for Louis Farrakhan, and Earl Graves, the president and CEO of Black Enterprise magazine, will speak as well.

The Panhandle location might not be familiar to those traveling from Los Angeles or Detroit, but unlike Orlando or Miami, Brock felt the serene location would help members relax and clear their minds as they got back to the basics.

Plus, organizers say, the resort atmosphere is deliberately familiar to summit registrants. NAACP members pay $300 and non-members pay $375, which also covers the first $75 of a lifetime membership. The event is targeted at non-members, Brock said. It is unclear how many non-members signed up.

"From the outset it does seem like it's attracting a different type of a person," said Stokes, 36, first vice president of the Hillsborough County NAACP and one of two active Hillsborough members under the age of 40. The Hillsborough branch boasts at least 1,000 members, he said.

He plans on driving his Mercedes to Destin, but he's not caravaning with anyone else because there is no one else. Nationally, only 14 percent of the NAACP's 500,000 membership are between the ages of 35 and 45, NAACP officials said. The majority are 50 and older.

Local chapters say their membership figures are private, but the NAACP has known for years that young adults need to be recruited to carry the torch.

"If more younger people get involved, you'll attract younger people," said Stokes, community affairs director for Fifth Third Bank.

At 49, Nate Patterson isn't a young adult, but he's still part of the NAACP's new target market. His goal for the conference is to return with ideas on how to keep the civil rights group relevant for his generation.

"I'm real excited about this because these are the ages we're missing in central Florida in the NAACP," said Patterson, spokesman for the Clearwater/Upper Pinellas branch, which claims 15 percent of its membership is in the target category. "I'm interested in seeing why they joined and how we can recruit."

Adrienne Samuels can be reached at 445-4157 or samuels@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 27, 2005, 11:33:16]