The Florida NAACP is moving to oust a local chapter president who contends the move was prompted by his appearance at a rally supporting the state’s tax credit scholarship program.
The state chapter, which is among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed last month to end Florida’s 13-year-old tax credit scholarship program, informed Rev. Manuel Sykes on Sept. 11 that he would be stripped of his presidency of the organization’s St. Petersburg chapter, and that the local branch would be reorganized.
The move followed an audit of Sykes’ group and months of discussions with the statewide organization about membership, bookkeeping and other issues. It also came two weeks after Sykes appeared at a rally in Tallahassee supporting Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, which is serving 68,000 low-income students this fall, 70 percent of them black or Hispanic. (The program is administered by organizations like Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.)
“The only thing they had to sink their teeth in was my appearance and presence at the rally,” Sykes told redefinED in an interview. “They couldn’t have used those small bookkeeping issues to do what they did.”
The NAACP has been a staunch opponent of publicly funded private school choice options like vouchers and tax credit scholarships. That position has at times created tensions with black parents, other civil rights groups and internally.
Sykes has come out in support of school choice programs in the past, but the rally in Tallahassee was held the same day the Florida teachers union, Florida School Boards Association, Florida NAACP and other groups filed suit.
To avoid problems with the state organization, Sykes never mentioned his ties to the NAACP during the rally (the footage of his appearance is embedded below). In interviews that day, he emphasized he was speaking as pastor of Bethel Community Baptist Church, which runs a private school that accepts students who use the scholarships.
However, despite his efforts to stress he was not trying to undercut the statewide NAACP, nor appearing as a representative of the local group, his role with the civil rights organization was mentioned in media reports.
Sykes’ appearance at the rally is listed – along with a number of other issues – in the letter from the state conference announcing its intent to dissolve his chapter.
The Florida NAACP has not returned calls seeking to clarify the other problems it cited with the local chapter, including a statement that it had not remained in good standing with the state organization, and the role they played in its decision to disband the local chapter.
Sykes contends most of the issues were either “minuscule” or in the process of being addressed. He said he hopes to find legal representation and wants a chance to respond to the points in the letter.
“What they did was too quick, without warning, and swift and final,” he said. “We were never even given an opportunity to say anything.”
Rev. Manuel Sykes speaks at tax credit scholarship rally from Travis Pillow on Vimeo.
