DETROIT — With the city at a crossroads, dealing with a state-led bankruptcy and a newly elected mayor, Reverend Wendell Anthony enters his 21st year as the leader of the largest chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Despite a decline in population over the last few decades, Detroit is still home to the largest concentration of African American residents in a major city at 82 percent, according to the latest U.S. census data.

Since its inception in 1912, the Detroit branch of the NAACP has proven to be a pivotal civil rights organization in the community through its power and durability. The organization has successfully led various lawsuits and public demonstrations in Detroit and throughout Michigan, including historic cases tracing back to 1954 that involved segregation in Detroit’s public housing system. 

In 1956, the organization established its first annual Fight For Freedom Fund Dinner, which has since gone on to host the largest sit-down dinner for the organization in the country. 

Since taking the helm of the branch in 1993, Anthony notably organized and led a march of over 250,000 people in Detroit for the 30th Anniversary of the march of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The event became the largest march for the civil rights movement since 1963. The chapter has since raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid for residents in need as well as relief for refugees in both Rwanda and Zaire.  

In 1986, Reverend Anthony became pastor of the Fellowship Chapel in Detroit. The church built and established a 100,000 square foot facility on Outer Drive in 2005 named the New Fellowship Chapel. The facility now services thousands of people on a weekly basis and houses The James  E. Wadsworth, Jr. Community Center, a nonprofit community-based organization established to serve locals through various programs that aim to enhance their quality of life. In 2011, he also extended a hand to the local Arab American community, becoming a board member for the Arab Civil Rights League (ACRL) in Dearborn.  

A native of St. Louis, Anthony moved to Detroit as a teenager and was educated in the Detroit Public School system. He graduated from Wayne State University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and earned his master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Marygrove College. In 2007, he received a degree of Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Marygrove College. He also attended the University of Detroit for Advanced Study in Black Theology. Anthony is also a certified social worker in the State of Michigan.

The Arab American News sat down with Anthony at the New Fellowship Chapel where he discussed topics that included the current state of the civil rights movement, President Barack Obama, Detroit’s bankruptcy and current relations between the Arab and African American communities. 

Wendell Anthony: It’s a mixed bag. We are very pleased and excited and honored with the election of the first African American president. I never thought I would live to see it. It is a blessing and it is a burden. The blessing is that we have a brilliant man who came to the White House during at a critical time in this nation’s history. Our nation was on the verge of financial collapse. We were in two wars. He had his hands full. He came in and people had made it their business to block everything that he wanted to do. His opponents have said that their greatest responsibility and duty is to make sure that he is a one-term president, and that he fails. He still has managed to get healthcare, increase minimum wage for federal workers and increase educational opportunities and grants. He’s done a great job despite the adversities, so that’s a blessing. The burden is, in terms of the African American community, he has not been able to respond in the way many folks think he should. He’s not the African American president; he’s the president of everybody.

But still, some people say we wish he could do more and say something more about us. He can’t. Because if he does that, other folks will attack him and say you are the president for that particular group, not the president for all the people. It’s like being caught between a rock and a hard place. It is a burden for us that he cannot specifically speak to our condition, even though our condition merits presidential intervention.  I’m talking about unemployment; I’m talking about education; I’m talking about the prison industrial complex; I’m talking about our policies in Africa. And I think he’s done his best to address these issues, but a rising tide does not lift a boat if you don’t have one. While we support and pray for the president, we still have these challenges. But when you compare Barack Obama to all the field that’s out there, I’d vote for him again and again and again, and I think most right thinking people would as well.

WA: I think they are very proud still. Most people are still pleased with him. They recognize that he has taken more criticism personally, more threats against his life than any other president. All the obstacles that were put up against him were never put up against any other president. I wish that we would have a national job program. He has a national job agenda, but he can’t get that through Congress. I wish he could do more in terms of infrastructure to hire my people and your people to put us to work. I wish he could do something about stand your ground laws, which target people of color, but then they would push that as he’s only concerned about certain segments of people.

WA: You had a different economic time when Clinton was president. Money was flowing. We did not have the kind of deficit that we have now. Republicans worked more with Clinton. They did not have the race issue. And race is an issue here. It’s very clear to us. Bill Clinton had an easier time of it. Obama has had a difficult time since day one. And Obama got national healthcare. Clinton didn’t. That’s something that’s going to live well beyond his tenure as president. That’s why they’re fighting it so hard, because they want to distort his legacy. The whole emphasis of increasing aid in education, I think that’s a big thing. The issues of voting rights and the photo ID as a voting requirement arose with Obama. Those were not issues when Clinton was president. All of a sudden they became issues in many states now because people do not want to see another Barack Obama. Clinton left George W. Bush a surplus. Bush left Obama a major deficit that we are still trying to recover from.

WA: The NAACP is going to be the NAACP no matter who is president. Some presidents have been more sensitive to the issues of the NAACP than others. Ronald Reagan was not necessarily as sensitive. Barack Obama has been very sensitive to the NAACP. There have been meetings with the NAACP and other organizations, which included members of the Arab community, who have met with him on a regular basis to help shape certain policies and statements that he would come up with, so I think that’s a good thing. I think we would rather have Barack Obama and [Attorney General] Eric Holder dealing with the issues of voting rights rather than a Reagan or a Bush. They’re fighting that now. And Holder said he’s made it his issue to challenge these laws in the states that have a history of racial discrimination. That grows from the sensitivity of this administration, so my answer is yes.

TAAN: With the NSA surveillance programs, the no-fly list and arbitrary bank closures, some would say our civil rights have taken a hit with Barack Obama.

WA: Civil rights have taken a hit because there are those who don’t believe in civil rights. Some people think we live in a postracial society, simply because Obama is in the White House. Look at what happened in Florida with stand your ground laws, what happened in Dearborn Heights [with the shooting of African American teenager Renisha McBride]. Stand your ground is a reality around this country. Look at the fact that Michigan is a Right to Work State, the fact that we have a emergency managers, which goes against the democratization of our community and takes away our voting rights. I didn’t elect an emergency manager; I elected a mayor and a city council. 

Yes, civil rights have taken a hit, and that’s because we’ve taken a hit with Obama’s election. When he was elected, the forces of nullification rose up, and so they have been fighting this president. It’s not that his policies are what’s being done in local communities. Since they didn’t have the White House, they’re taking it back to the state level. We’re going back to states’ rights. Some states have tried to choke the life out of the civil rights community. I know in the Arab American community, you’re concerned about the banks and what they’ve done. We’re concerned about the banks and what they don’t do. They don’t provide loans. We need those. The administration gave loans to bail out the banks. The banks took the money and they’re sitting on it.  They’re not putting the money back into the economy. There shoud’ve been some mechanism that says you must loan the money back to small businesses and to people in the community. They didn’t do that. 

WA: There are a lot of reasons for that in my view, but mainly two things: media and money. The news media had a candidate that they supported unequivocally from day one. The big money people had a candidate that they supported from day one. Traditionally, the business people would support both candidates. They gave money only to one candidate. And there was the Kwame Kilpatrick factor. Our community was demoralized. Everyday for 2-3 years, we were told about Kwame Kilpatrick how bad he was, how bad African American leadership is. They basically made our community not like itself. African Americans in Detroit, like all other folks, wanted change. They were made to feel as though the only way to get this change is to elect a certain kind of mayor. And they bought that. It does not mean that the mayor is not going to do a good job. But it simply means that there was a strategic plan – and a whole lot of folks were involved in that, including the media – to make sure that [Mike Duggan] got this job.

WA: There cannot be two Detroits. There must be one Detroit, with a downtown and neighborhoods. We have beautiful neighborhoods. But my neighborhood is never on TV. What you see on TV is devastation and heartbreak. We don’t have a problem with anybody coming into the city. I want people to come in and buy land and develop it, but I also want to be a part of it. I have a stake in Detroit. We built this church, which used to sit on an area that used to be abandoned houses. We built this. We didn’t get a grant from the city. The people here put the money in and got a loan from the bank. 

When you read the news, you don’t ever see the stories about the churches that have knocked down homes, that are employing people and stabilizing communities. If we were not here, all hell would break loose. The only security in Detroit for it to be one community is to get everybody to participate for the development to spread out here. That’s the challenge the mayor has and it’s a challenge that he says he’s willing to take. 

WA: Yes, there are issues in Detroit. Yes, there are murders, but there are murders everywhere. We can’t get stuck on that. What we need to do is educate and train. We need job opportunities. The governor likes to talk about Pure Michigan, but Michigan is not pure; it is polluted. Where are the jobs in the city? Where are the job training programs? What has he brought to the table? If you really want to improve the conditions, then work with churches and nonprofit organizations. Work with organizations that are trying to lift up and improve the quality of life of people. They want to cut the unemployment compensation from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. What are those people supposed to do when they have no aid coming in? So when you ask me what can we do about it, it has to be a concerted effort. We can do something about it because we can put people in programs and [the governor] can do something about it because he has the resources and money. 

The state has a $1.3 billion surplus and they don’t know what to do with it. What about all those roads out there that need to be fixed? Train our people and put them out there. If you are going to knock down blight, then make sure that local people are involved. Not every house needs to be knocked down. Some of them can be renovated and some can be rehabilitated. That’s an opportunity for training and employment. People can do painting, plumbing, carpeting, drywall. You don’t need to knock down everything. But there have not been enough resources, and they have not been making the efforts. 

WA: We in the NAACP filed a lawsuit [against the state takeover] under the basis that it violates our constitutional rights and our voting rights. We filed that for the whole state because we have NAACP units across the whole state. Only in predominantly African American communities have Emergency Managers been implemented: Flint, Pontiac, Detroit, Highland Park. Troy and West Bloomfield have issues, but there are no EM’s out there. It has affected the ability to go out and vote. You have one man who by executive order who is able to sign off on everything. 

When Kevyn Orr leaves, what is going to be the structure and relationship that the mayor and city council has? There seems to be more concerns about art and the museum than people and their homes. Some are more concerned about Picasso than people. When a family with a single mother, or a senior citizen only has $1,500 coming in a month with no chance of earning another income and then you reduce it to $1,000, that’s life threatening. I’m simply saying that’s the shortfall and that’s where the state and the governor come up short. We are doing the sacrificing while they share the benefits. 

WA: I think it has improved over the years. We still have challenges and we know what they are. I think a lot of it goes under the fact that you don’t see a lot of African American entrepreneurs running local stores or gas stations. So you are going to have that. I think it has gotten better and I’m always encouraging folks to treat other people the way you want to be treated. We in the NAACP have tried to maintain a respectable and beneficial relationship with the Arab American community. I think that there is nothing wrong with programs that appreciate the diversity of both communities. There is nothing wrong with us sitting down and breaking bread on occasions where we can talk it out rather than fight it out. I think people in our community sometimes are unreasonable, and sometimes people in your community are unreasonable. When you have two people who are unreasonable, it will take a third party to come in to try to get them to be reasonable and I think that’s where we come in. 

There will always be challenges, but I think overall it has gotten better. I haven’t heard recently about conflicts. We used to get a lot of complaints, but I don’t hear them as often as I used to. I don’t know if that means things are getting better or if people are tired of saying the same thing. I’d like to think that it means that relationships are getting better. You aren’t going anywhere and we aren’t going anywhere, so we might stay here together and try to work some things out.