Category Archives: News

Scholarship for graduating high school senior

The Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP is pleased to announce that they are offering a scholarship to a graduating senior.

The funding for this scholarship is from the Charlottesville/Albemarle Branch of the NAACP and Aramark-Federal Executive Institute. The Scholarship is for an Albemarle/Charlottesville area student who is academically competitive and active in the community. The scholarship will be awarded in the amount of $1,000 to a winner attending a four year college. The student that is selected for this award will be expected to present their essay at the Annual NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet in September.

Individuals expecting to enroll full-time in a 4 year college who are interested in applying for the scholarship must complete the application and return it to the address below by 5:00pm April 15, 2015.

Albemarle-Charlottesville Branch NAACP
P.O. Box 1522
Charlottesville, Virginia 22902

Complete Applications should include the following items:

_____1. Application: Complete an application coversheet.
_____2. Essay: Write at least a 300 word  essay on the following topic (applicants should have and/or acquire a working knowledge of the NACCP): Is protesting still a relevant aspect of the NAACP? Can Civil Rights be protected/achieved through protest?
____3. Transcripts: high School transcripts should include any and all courses taken with the most recent grades.
____4. School/Community Involvement: List all activities and positions held.
____5. Admittance Letter: Applicants must submit a letter of admittance and/or a letter of intent to attend a 4 year college.
____6. One Letter of Recommendation: Applicants should ask a teacher, school counselor, principal, coach, pastor or employer for a positive recommendation.
All finalist will be interviewed. Interviews are designed to get to know the applicant better. Finalist will be notified by May 4th, 2015.

Add African-American voices to law

From the Charlottesville Daily Progress Letters to the Editor, January 30, 2015

After reading The Daily Progress story “Albemarle supervisors agree to fund extra attorney for county commonwealth’s attorney’s office” (Daily Progress, 2015 January 7), and after subsequently visiting the Albemarle County and Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney’s offices to inquire about the presence of African-American attorneys, I learned that neither office presently has any African-American attorneys.

This is an excellent opportunity to remind both Albemarle County’s commonwealth’s attorney, Denise Lunsford, and Charlottesville’s commonwealth’s attorney, Dave Chapman, that if they believe in racial diversity they should consider hiring African-American attorneys in these very important offices.

If they are to adhere to the mission of their offices — which is dedicated to pursing justice and protecting the rights and safety of the citizens of Albemarle and Charlottesville and their visitors — then they should include a racially diverse team of attorneys that reflects the diversity in the county’s and city’s population.

Mission statements talk about how the offices aspire to enforce criminal laws in a fair, compassionate, ethical and just manner. That’s a very important aspiration. But those are subjective terms, and what is fair, just or compassionate often depends on one’s perspective and background.

The commonwealth’s attorney’s offices — and all of the law offices in Albemarle and Charlottesville — therefore would benefit from having on their legal teams attorneys who come from a similar racial background as many of the people they represent or otherwise encounter in the criminal justice system.

Coming from similar background, an attorney might be able to better understand a broader array of the social dynamics that result in the disproportionately high rate of interaction that Africans-Americans and other people of color have with the criminal justice system, as well as the unique set of challenges that they may face.

That perspective would seem to be very valuable in many aspects of the duties of the commonwealth’s attorney’s office, such as determining how best to prevent crime from happening in the first place, negotiating settlements, and determining the most suitable and effective punishment when crime has occurred.

In short, such attorneys could bring to the table an important perspective of what constitutes fairness, justice and compassion, and could help the commonwealth, city, county and all the law offices fulfill their mandate to prosecute and handle issues of justice with integrity, equality and excellence.

M. Rick Turner
Charlottesville