May 7th, 2020

NAACP postpones national convention in Boston

The NAACP has postponed its national convention previously scheduled for Boston in July, according to Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston Branch.

Organizers are considering a later date to host the civil rights organization’s historic event. Details will be finalized at a national board meeting later this month.

“As I’m sure you all expect, the convention is being postponed,” Sullivan told Boston NAACP members during a virtual meeting last week. “While the national office will make the appropriate announcements within the coming weeks, we will continue with convention planning, understanding that it won’t just be for July.”

The convention, which was expected to draw thousands to the city, was scheduled to take place July 25 – 30 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in the Seaport, a venue that is now being used as a 1,000-bed field hospital for homeless individuals and recovering coronavirus patients. Event links on both the convention center’s website and national NAACP’s have been disabled.

A student competition leading up the convention will take place remotely, Sullivan said.

The Afro-Academic Cultural Technological and Scientific Olympics, a year-long program and competition for youth of African descent scheduled for July 23-26 “is still scheduled to take place, albeit virtually,” Sullivan said.

The Boston Branch’s 2020 Racial Justice Summit was postponed from April and is now scheduled to occur virtually on Saturday. The July convention was also to coincide with the release of a new report on the state of Black Boston being developed by the Boston Branch. Sullivan told members the work for both continues.

“As we are moving forward with the important work of the summit and the report, I want to remind you that we’ve always said that the branch’s preparation for the convention was not about a date in July. It was always about our community, what our community needs, beginning and end,” Sullivan said.

The NAACP last held its convention in Boston in 1982, a time of racial tension in the city following the court-ordered desegregation of public schools. Those sessions were held at the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay.

Saraya Wintersmith covers Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan for WGBH News 89.7.

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