Southpinellas: NAACP chief faces challenge from board

ST. PETERSBURG -- For 21 years, Garnelle Jenkins has guided the St. Petersburg NAACP branch through school desegregation, racial unrest and political upheaval in the city.

Today, she faces what may be her toughest re-election challenge yet.

Darryl Rouson, a lawyer and NAACP board member, is asking the group's 300 members to choose him to provide more activist leadership to an organization he thinks has grown stale.

"Ms. Jenkins is a nice woman, but it's time for a change," Rouson said Monday. "We want to appeal to the 20 to 40 age group. We want to make it relevant again."

Rouson is aligned with a slate of candidates challenging Jenkins and her supporters to become the group's next leaders. The local branch's 300 or so members may vote at the NAACP office at 1501 16th St. S today from 4 to 8 p.m.

Jenkins has participated recently in discussions of the Pinellas County School Board's plan to keep schools desegregated after federal court supervision of the district ends, but she has been all but absent from public discussions of other major issues.

Rouson, 45, said that leaves many African-Americans, especially younger ones, feeling unrepresented by an organization that historically appealed to a broad swath of the black community. He said the membership of the group should be much larger, at least 1,000.

Jenkins, 73, rarely speaks with reporters. On Monday she asked current secretary Marsha Carter to return a call seeking an interview.

"Garnelle has devoted many, many years to that branch," Carter said. "She made a promise she would stay there until that (headquarters) building is paid for. This would be Garnelle's last election. She has given so much that I believe she deserves two more years."

The headquarters building will be paid off within two years, Carter said.

Carter faces opposition in the election from Perkins Shelton, a longtime member of the NAACP who has publicly called for the local branch to work more actively for social change.

Carter pointed to Shelton's presence at recent news conferences given by the National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement and to the Uhuru involvement of first vice president candidate Gwen Reese, who has been a member of the Uhurus.

"I'm concerned that the people who are running don't understand how the NAACP works," Carter said.

Rouson said he is not a member of the Uhuru movement, and he called any implication that his slate is an Uhuru slate a scare tactic. He does believe the NAACP needs to team up with the Uhurus and other community groups more often on some issues, such as economic development in poor neighborhoods.

"That's the attack of desperate people, to say things that would make people afraid," he said."

Uhuru leader Omali Yeshitela also denied Rouson's group is affiliated with the Uhuru. Yeshiteladoes think change is needed in the NAACP's leadership.

"You can't even locate them," Yeshitela said. "Until the last couple of weeks when this contest emerged for this election, it was hard to even get anybody on the phone."

NAACP board member Tee Lassiter said Jenkins is making the needed changes at the NAACP, so she supports Jenkins' re-election campaign. She said she dislikes criticism of Jenkins.

"Every time I've needed to talk to her, she's not hard to find," Lassiter said. "She realizes this is a new day, and you have to use new strategies. "

Carter said it is a lack of community interest, not lax leadership, that has kept the St. Petersburg NAACP from doing more.

"Could we do more? Absolutely," she said. "We could work until cows fly. The problem is that as corporate America has changed and people are more squeezed for time, it's harder to get people to come out and volunteer."