NAACP eyes role in mayoral election
Published 11:25 am Friday, January 18, 2019
By Ken Stickney
Kalan Gardner will admit, readily enough, that the local chapter of the NAACP is not what it used to be.
He remembers more vibrant days for the organization, including what he recalls as a heyday a couple of decades back.
“I was a youth member when the organization was at its largest,” he said. “Compared to then, we are not where we used to be.”
Gardner, pastor at First Sixth Street Baptist Church in Port Arthur, said the organization remains active and is seeking to regain its footing in the community.
“We’re in the building stages, getting members, raising awareness,” he said this week. “We are still here, we still care and we are still working behind the scenes.”
Gardner, 33, said the organization’s membership took a hit after Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey ravaged Port Arthur in August 2017. Many members left Port Arthur, he said, or have not reengaged with the NAACP since then.
Gardner said Port Arthur has experienced some social and political changes for the better. There is a black mayor, black school superintendent, and an all-black City Council. But those changes haven’t necessarily filtered down to everyone in Port Arthur’s black community leading better lives.
“We have felt some frustration, a lot of frustration among citizens with what they are seeing from the City Council. It has been that way a few years now,” Gardner said. “No one believes we have arrived. We believe still have a long way to go.”
To that end, he said, the May 4 election for Port Arthur mayor may prove to be “very important.”
“We hope to get more involved to move the city forward,” Gardner said, adding that the organization may focus on education and economic development to “move our city forward.”
He said the NAACP plans to host a mayoral forum as part of its participation in the election. He said he hopes to encourage candidates to present a platform.
“The next mayor will be in a great position to move the city in a positive direction,” he said. “As citizens, we cannot vote for a mayor by popularity only. That’s been the downfall to our politics overall. We have a tendency to vote for who is popular rather than who is qualified.”
Gardner said Port Arthur Independent School District is moving in a positive direction but it, too, needs improvement. He said he hopes the NAACP can cooperate with the school system and library to encourage more tutoring programs for children.
“We need to get more parental involvement,” he said. But he said he doesn’t have specific suggestions.
Gardner said “we’ve had some conversations” with the growing Hispanic community in the past. Those conversations have not been as frequent or as consistent as he said he would like them to be but he said the NAACP would welcome more dialogue with the Hispanic community.
He said the Hispanic community is making its presence felt in the school system as well as elsewhere.
“I wish they had Hispanics running for City Council, running for mayor. That would bring some diversity to the council. I would love to see that.”
Currently, the seven-member City Council is composed entirely of African Americans.
Gardner said in addition to the City Council election, the NAACP will hold its own election at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the West Side Development Center. About a half-dozen leadership positions are up for election.
