Activist is Comfortable ‘Raising Hell’

By Makebra M. AndersonNNPA National Correspondent LAS VEGAS (NNPA) – No media outlet can tell the story of Black America’s plight better or more accurately than the Black press, the newly-appointed executive director of the National Society for Black Engineers told a convention of African-American publishers. Speaking here to the mid-winter convention of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of more than 200 Black newspapers, Carl Mack said: “Our community and our people are beginning to loose their way. They want to turn to mainstream media as opposed to turning to Black media. Mainstream media wouldn’t tell our story and from what we know now, even if they wanted to tell our story, they can’t tell our story as good as we can tell our story.” Mack, immediate past president of the Seattle/King County chapter of the NAACP, was the subject of many stories. He gained national attention when his chapter sparked a national campaign by demanding that the Urban Outfitters store to pull the game “Ghettoopoly,” a board game similar to “Monopoly” where players play with replicas of marijuana, crack cocaine, and 40-ounce beer bottles. Although the national chain was reluctant to remove the game from its shelves, pressure became so intense that they had no choice if they wanted to maintain Black customers. The former NAACP leader said he would not have been successful without the support of the Black press. “We raise hell because we love our people and we make no apologies for it. We did it because of the Black press,” he told NNPA publishers celebrating their 65th anniversary. “The Black press has the courage to do what other papers don’t do. Every fight we engage in, the Black press is there.” It was clear from the outset that Mack is comfortable dealing with the Black press. Before his speech, he slipped out of suit coat, placed it on the back of his chair, and walked to the podium to give a 40-minute speech. It was immediately evident that he was at ease dealing with the Black press and they were equally at ease with him as he recounted past battles in Seattle. It was the Seattle/King County chapter of the NAACP that shut down traffic on a popular Seattle highway in protest of the number of Black men murdered at the hands of police. During that protest, Mack was handcuffed and sent to jail on charges of pedestrian interference, charges that were later dropped. Under Mack’s leadership, membership in the Seattle/King county chapter of the NAACP increased from 600 to more than 2,000. The national NAACP selected Seattle as the most outstanding chapter in 2004. The NAACP has more than 1,800 branches across the country. Although Mack is an uncompromising civil rights leader, there is also a sensitive side to him. For a minute, he was speechless and tears welled up in his eyes as he began recounting the time he was asked to intervene in a case where a Black female student was brutalized because she was involved in an argument with a White girl at a local high school. Security guards grabbed the African-American by her hair, slammed her face into a locker, threw her to the floor and handcuffed her while doing nothing to the White girl. Regaining his composure, Mack described a lawsuit filed by the NAACP on behalf of the Blacks student. “It wasn’t long before I went to the school district. And when I went to the meeting, I brought the Black press. Because reason and stupid can’t talk, we walked out of the meeting,” Mack explained. “With the help of the Black press, the $10 million we originally asked for ended up being $50 million. We were able to educate our community about what was going on because of the Black press. That is what I love about Black media.” As much Mack loved agitating in Seattle, he is in the process of moving to the Washington, D.C.-area. Mack and his wife are engineers and he is looking forward taking on a different kind of struggle as executive director of the National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE). It has more than 10,000 members and is the largest student-run organization in the world. “The mission of NSBE is to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community,” Mack explained. “Like Carter G. Woodson [the father of Black History Month] said, real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly. To begin with life as they find it and then make it better.” To make life better, Mack is already exploring ways he can continue to work with the Black Press. “The NAACP has been successful because of the Black press and NSBE will be just as successful because of the Black press,” he said. He ended with a quote by Frederick Douglass: “Any man who professes to favor freedom, but you detest agitation well you are a man who wants crops without plowing the field. You want rain without thunder and lightening. The NAACP, Black press and NSBE must always be thunder and lightening!” The publishers gave Mack a thunderous standing ovation.