PASADENA ANC BUILDS TIES WITH LOCAL NAACP
Asbarez
Feb 4th, 2010
PASADENA, CA – Leaders of the Armenian American community in Pasadena
exchanged ideas with a leader of the Pasadena chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at a meeting
held at the Pasadena Armenian Center on February 3.
The meeting was with Gwendolyn Jones, a senior member of the Executive
Committee of the Pasadena Branch of the NAACP. Present alongside
ANC of Pasadena members was Katya Kazarian, a member of the Pasadena
Armenian Youth Federation’s "Nigol Touman" Chapter.
"Expanding our working relationship with the NAACP is a priority for
the Pasadena ANC," remarked Pasadena ANC Executive Director Ishkhan
Boghossian. "The Armenian American and African American communities
have a shared stake in the City of Pasadena and a common goal of
making our city a better one. We intend to build a strong and enduring
relationship with the local NAACP chapter."
"It takes a village to keep a community strong," commented Gwendolyn
Jones of the NAACP after her meeting with Pasadena ANC leaders. "The
Pasadena ANC has got it right," she added. Jones extended an invitation
for the Pasadena ANC’s leaders to visit the NAACP local headquarters
and to meet with her colleagues on the Executive Committee. In addition
to the NAACP’s Executive Committee, Jones is also a member of the
Legal Redress Committee, where she advances social justice issues
for her community.
The meeting with the Pasadena ANC and the Pasadena Branch of the
NAACP included an open discussion of a number of items of concern to
the citizens of Pasadena. The city’s work on the General Plan was
discussed, as were plans for a parcel tax to benefit the Pasadena
Unified School District. In addition, the groups discussed the current
search for a permanent chief of police to replace Chief Bernard
Melekian, who left his post last year to take a position at the U.S.
Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
The NAACP was founded in 1909 and is the nation’s oldest, largest
and most widely recognized grass-roots based civil rights organization.
The NAACP has over 500,000 supporters nationwide, with thousands of
them residing in the City of Pasadena and the southern California
region. The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing
horrific practice of lynching early in the 20th century in parts of
America. Today, the organization’s principal objective in Pasadena and
across the nation is to ensure the political, educational, social and
economic equality of minority groups and to eliminate racial prejudice.
The Pasadena ANC advocates for the social, economic, cultural,
and political rights of the area’s Armenian American community and
promotes increased Armenian American civic participation at the
grassroots and public policy levels.