Page One

NAACP does not endorse  

As a lifetime member of the Berkeley branch of the NAACP and the current Chairman of the Black Property Owners Association, I am aware that the policy of the NAACP is never to endorse political parties, i.e. the Green Party, BCA, or any other party. The flagrant error on the front page of the Berkeley Daily Planet on July 17 sent a message to the Black community that the NAACP endorsed the Green Party and BCA. The good name of the NAACP was used to boast the candidates of these parties and it was made to appear that they represented the Black community and had a coalition as rent slate. While this front page error was subsequently corrected in the Berkeley Daily Planet on the bottom of the third page on July 18 the signal suggests that it is okay not to check facts and discredits how the NAACP conducts itself. 

Because I have received numerous calls asking what is happening I think it is fair to let the reading public know that the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, Mr. Johnnie Porter, has registered his disappointment and affirmed that the NAACP has not changed its focus or policies and accordingly does not make endorsements as a membership organization. We simply ask that the public not be misled. 

Frank Davis, Jr. 

Berkeley 

Reflections on Jerusalem 

Recently you ran a letter of mine about Israel being one-sixteenth of an inch on a map of the Middle East; on 22 July 00 I was blown away by the following item from the LA Times (via The Chron): 

“The Old City (of Jerusalem), a cramped half-mile square enclave, contains the holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall that is a remnant of the second temple mourt. 

“A few feet above the Western Wall is the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. And the holiest site in Christendom, the Holu Sepulcher Church where Jesus is said to have been crucified and resurrected, are also located inside the Old City’s ancient walls.” 

In other words, all this is not even a square mile, all this is where the victors will drown in their own blood. My wife and I were in all the above places a few years ago, plus Christmas Eve in Bethlehem; we are not Jewish or religious. just bewildered. 

George Kauffman