Breazell Is Out

What Happens When Blacks Don't Go Along With the Program?

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer/Fall 1999]

"I was kind of lynched, so to speak," said Willie Breazell to the Gazette-Telegraph, when he was forced to resign his post as president of the Colorado Springs branch of the NAACP.

And he had still more to tell to the Wall Street Journal, that reported him as saying, "If you join the NAACP, you sacrifice some of your liberties, and if you don't have the group-think mentality, you won't last." Just what set the big boys at the national NAACP against Breazell? He had the temerity to write an article supporting school choice and vouchers.

In an Op-Ed piece he wrote for the Gazette-Telegraph, he claimed, "The poorest kids who need the most help [are] trapped in our very worst schools." That kind of frankness apparently is enough to unsettle the caretakers of the black cause. Bound and tied to teachers unions, black leaders are forced to preach blind support of union agendas, no matter their value or worthlessness to the welfare of the black masses.

Breazell observes, "With high paying technology jobs on the rise and with tech jobs forecasted to account for 50% of all jobs by 2010, can we afford to continue to let public schools under-educate the majority of our children? I think not. . . . I have a 9-year-old grandson who is being pushed forward to the next grade, despite his not having the requisite skills of the higher grade. However, because of funding and other social and political pressures, he will end up being promoted, perhaps without the competitive skills needed to go to college or seek out a quality job in the workplace."

For his remarks, Breazell soon found himself reprimanded not only by local civil rights leaders, but also by national chairman Julian Bond. He resigned shortly thereafter.

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