COLUMBUS, Ind. — The keynote speaker at the annual Columbus/Bartholomew County Branch of the NAACP meeting and dinner Saturday said that leaders must help young people find better paths to academic and overall achievement, given poor performance results on many standardized tests in recent years.
He said he doubted that national NAACP founders would be pleased with many of those scores. But he added that people must persevere to help the younger generation succeed.
“Too many people have marched, too many people have taken bullets, for us to stop now,” said Dennis Bland. He is president of the Center for Leadership Development, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit empowering Black youth for academic and career success.
He spoke at the NAACP’s Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance and Awards Gala before an audience at Columbus’ Mill Race Center of 163 people — one of the stronger turnouts since Columbus native and former Indianapolis television reporter Kyle Inskeep was the keynote speaker in 2017 and attracted 374 people.
“We definitely are ecstatic about the turnout and all the overall support,” Edwards said after the gathering. “We are very excited about that.”
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