Civil Rights News: NAACP More Diverse; 4-Yr-Old Citizen Deported; Census Finds Detroit Desertion; Miami PD Questioned in Race Relations

New NAACP Seeing More Gay, Diverse Chapter Leaders
The State-South Carolina’s Homepage

Established to advocate for black equality and civil rights, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) now has grown to confront prejudice at broader levels. Diversity can be widely seen, from the leadership of NAACP chapters to the range of its contemporary issues that impact many underrepresented groups. Some fear that the movement toward diversity will lessen the NAACP’s impact on the issues and participation from the black community, yet others believe that diversity is ingrained in the organization’s history of activism. Patricia Sullivan, a history professor at the University of South Carolina and author of “Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement,” called the new push for diversity thrilling and said, “It’s really reflecting what the NAACP has represented historically and what its vision has been.”

Girl, 4, a U.S. Citizen, Is Deported to Guatemala
New York Times

A 4-year-old American girl, Emily Ruiz, was deported to Guatemala after returning from travels with her grandfather. Upon returning to the United States, they were stopped by customs due to her grandfather’s history of an immigration infraction. Stuck in limbo, Emily and her grandfather were eventually sent to Guatemala. The story reveals the controversial debate on immigration and birthright citizenship. Her parents are undocumented residents and are now working with immigrant advocates to bring Emily back. “…[this case] shows what can happen once you start treating kids who are born here whose parents are undocumented with less rights than a full-blown citizen,” said Jeanne A. Butterfield, a former executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who has been acting as an informal adviser to Mr. Ruiz’s lawyers.

Detroit Population Down 25 Percent, Census Finds
New York Times

On Tuesday census data revealed that Detroit’s population dropped by 25 percent; the largest percentage drop in the nation, apart from the population of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina which fell by 29 percent.
The reasons for the population decline can be pointed to the difficult times for the auto industry and the collapse of the industrial dependent economy.
An additional factor has been the movement of Black residents to the suburbs; Detroit lost 185,393 Black residents in the last decade. “This is the biggest loss of Blacks the city has shown, and that’s tied to the foreclosures in the city’s housing,” Mr. Frey said. Because of the Great Migration — when Blacks flowed from the South to the North — and the loss of Whites, he said, “Detroit has been the most segregated city in the country and it is still pretty segregated, but not as much.”

Killings of 7 Black Men Put Miami Police in Spotlight
New York Times

Communities in Miami are in protest because seven Black men have been shot and killed by police in eight months. Calls were made for a Justice Department investigation and the city manager has begun looking into the chief’s record concerning race and law enforcement.

Compiled by Leah Bui