Civil rights leader to visit Moses Lake for NAACP conference

Visit is part of annual NAACP regional meeting

MOSES LAKE — Only 10 months into his new presidency and position as CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Charles Steele, Jr. is bringing his message of nonviolence to Moses Lake.

A guest speaker at the annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Alaska, Oregon and Washington state conference being held Sept. 23 through the 25 at the Moses Lake Convention Center, Steele will speak on the SCLC's efforts nationally and internationally to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination.

The NAACP was founded in 1909 to advocate for civil and human rights for all people in an effort to eliminate racial discrimination and hatred. The SCLC is a nonprofit that has been in existence since 1957 and was co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for civil rights in the South.

Steele is a native of Alabama and a civil rights leader. He has served as a city councilman in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and been instrumental in establishing scholarship funds, local parks and community organizations in the South and was elected to the Alabama state senate in 1994. In October of 2000, Steele was elected as a senate member of the high chamber (U.S. Parliamentary Group) of the International States Parliament for Safety and Peace.

Part of his talk will include the creation of conflict resolution centers that SCLC has helped establish, the first one being in the Middle East that opened earlier this year with others in Ohio, Georgia and Colorado.

Since taking up his position at SCLC, Steele said he has made visits to the Middle East and to other leaders nationally and internationally who want to know how to resolve conflict and are looking to organizations like the SCLC for the organization's experience.

A theory Steele refers to as the "Kingian Theory" is what leaders around the world want to know more about, and which he describes as confronting hatred and racial discrimination using practices of nonviolent tactics and negotiation advocated by Martin Luther King Jr. "We still must realize we have a long way to go as far as Martin Luther King's vision," he said.

Festivities kick off Friday with pre-registration and a religious service at New Bride Missionary Baptist Church in Moses Lake at 5 p.m., followed by a day of workshops and a dinner/banquet Saturday at the Moses Lake Convention Center that begins at 7 a.m. The event finishes up Sunday with a religious service at 8 a.m. at New Bride Missionary Baptist Church and an executive committee meeting.

Other leaders and representatives from the private sector, state, federal and local government will also be attending. Topics up for discussion range from education, and civil and human rights, to health care and legal services.

Registration is $55 for adults for all three days and $35 for the Saturday banquet and workshops. Youth registration is $10. For further registration information, call 764-8620.