Page 2 - Florida Sentinel 1-19-18

Feature
NAACP Prepares To Celebrate Its 100th Anniversary
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
The National Association for the Advancement of Col- ored People, (NAACP), was established in February 1909 in New York City. Its founders, an interracial group of activists, created the organization to address issues pertaining to people of color, partially in re- sponse to the 1908 Spring- field race riot in Illinois.
Its members included
Mary White Ovington, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling, Oswald Garri- son Villard, along with African Americans W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida Wells Bar- nett, Archibald Grimke and Mary Church Ter- rell.
In February 1917, W. E. B. Du Bois came to Tampa to organize the Tampa Branch. He signed up 110 members, and its first pres- ident was Daniel W. Perkins, Esq.
For the first time in its history, the Hillsborough County Branch of the NAACP will hold its Free- dom Fund Banquet in Feb- ruary during Black History Month. The organization will celebrate its 100th An- niversary on Thursday, Feb- ruary 8, 2018 at the Hilton Tampa Downtown, begin- ning at 6 p.m.
The milestone will be
MS. YVETTE LEWIS
... Freedom Fund Dinner Chairman and President, Hillsborough County
Branch NAACP
celebrated at its Annual Freedom Fund Dinner. The theme for the event is, “Steadfast and Immov- able.”
The dinner was initially slated to be held in Novem- ber. However, the impend- ing arrival of Hurricane Irma caused the event to be postponed.
The dinner is the organi- zation’s largest fundraiser of the year.
The Chairman and Co- Chairman of the dinner are Ms. Yvette Lewis, Presi- dent of the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP and Joe Robinson, Second Vice President of the organ- ization, respectively. Attor- ney Tom Scaritt, Jr., is this year’s Honorary Chair- man.
Attorney Scarritt is the founder and president of Scarritt Law Group. He
JOE ROBINSON Co-Chairman of Freedom Fund Dinner
launched his educational background taking under- graduate studies at Univer- sity of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee), London School of Economics, and Univer- sity of Grenoble (France). He graduated with honors from the Florida State Uni- versity, College of Law.
Attorney Scarritt was recently named the top civil trial lawyer in Hillsborough County and received the Michael Fogarty “In the Trenches” Award for Ex- cellence. Along with his wife, Linda, he led the ef- fort to contribute and raise funds for the removal of a Confederate Memorial in downtown Tampa.
Hillsborough County Commissioners in favor of keeping the statue had given the community an ultima- tum to raise $140,000 in 30 days or the statue would re- main at its location. As a re- sult of Attorney Scarritt’s
ATTORNEY TOM SCARRITT, JR.
... Honorary Chairman
efforts, $180,000 was raised within 24 hours.
The statue has since been removed from in front of the County Courthouse to a private Confederate ceme- tery in Brandon.
This year’s keynote speaker is Rev. Larry J. Mouton, Jr., Senior Pas- tor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
Rev. Mouton gradu- ated from the U. S. Army Field Artillery and earned a Master’s Degree in Theology and Administration, from Southwestern Baptist Theo- logical Seminary, in Fort Worth, Texas.
He became the Senior Pastor at Pleasant Mount
REV. LARRY J. MOUTON, JR. Keynote Speaker
Gilead Missionary Baptist Church, in Fort Worth, Texas, in July 2012. He later relocated to Tampa and ac- cepted the role as Senior Pastor at New Hope Mis- sionary Baptist Church.
Executive Committee representatives from the local branch will worship with local congregations and provide information about the dinner and mem- bership following church services.
For more information about the dinner, contact the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP at (813) 234-8683 or visit the web- site at www.hillsborough- naacp.org.
PAGE 2-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2018