Charles Steele, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is in Mississippi to announce re-establishing a chapter in the state. Supporters joined him at the Capitol to name the new organizer.
"I'm so excited to announce that Miss Brenda Rice Scott is going to be our state organizer and coordinator," said Steele.
Scott, who is president of the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees union, says she will work to spotlight injustice, register voters and promote change that helps all Mississippians.
"We've had so many issues that effect our state employees and the people who need those services and we have not had an organization of that level to speak out, not even our State NAACP," said Scott.
Fifty-Seven years ago, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was launched to advance civil rights following the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first president and used non-violence successfully to fight segregation. Steele talked about SCLC's new focus on human rights, non-violence, as well as Mississippi's state flag. He says removing the flag should not be left to a statewide vote.
"And the governor as a leader, where ever the governor maybe, here or any other state, should take that flag down because of the history of that flag," said Steele.
Steele says the organization's primary concern is promoting economic empowerment.
