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Powell Wins Fourth Term As Berkshire NAACP President

A black man holding a mic with a face mask and an NAACP sign stands in a sun-dappled grassy park surrounded by people
Josh Landes
/
WAMC
Dennis Powell addresses a crowd in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts in May 2020.

Dennis Powell was re-elected to a fourth two-year term as president of the Berkshire County Branch of the NAACP in Wednesday’s virtual election. 

Powell, a 75 year-old retired Pittsfield, Massachusetts resident defeated challenger Ari Zorn, 53, of Egremont, with 131 votes to 76.

Zorn, who sits on the branch’s executive committee, alleged sexism within the chapter and drew on Powell’s controversial mention of Israeli military training of American police at a June rally in Great Barrington in an interview with WAMC this week.

That led to passionate defenses from Powell’s supporters. The election came after the chapter saw explosive growth in both membership and funding this year, with hundreds of new members and thousands of dollars in donations pouring in after the group led Black Lives Matters protests this spring. Powell outlined his plans for the new term in an interview Thursday:

POWELL: Well, I want to continue with our strategic plan and move that forward. We have a roadmap, it's identified, and I really want to, to be able to work that plan. There are some positive initiatives that we've identified and that we're going to work on. And we have really energized people to participate. And they want to participate. As I had mentioned, our education committee is so strong and powerful, with some great ideas to help move the whole education platform in our community. So those are the types of things that we're really going to be working on, and building a membership, even stronger than it is, and to really train our membership in what is activism. How do we go forward together? As a community.

WAMC: This has been such a divisive year with a lot of passion, a lot of anger, a lot of tension. What do you see as the NAACP’s role moving forward as one of the most calamitous years in American history comes to an end?

Well, let's hope it comes to an end. I feel our role is to continue to stand up and use our voices to move everybody to this whole anti-racist agenda. We were doing some positive things in this community with some very powerful people. There are some strong groups like Multicultural Bridge. We have an anti-racist group with some powerful community partners, like Greylock, Barrington Stage, Jacob's Pillow. So we're on a real serious agenda to move this community forward. And we also have to make sure that we continue to protest when anything needs to be called out. Because I think that's the most powerful thing that we can do. And it's been proven all over the country in our youth, and we're seeing it with this election. Our youth have really gone gotten out and gone to the polls.

You're also ending the year with a lot more members with a lot more money. How do you translate those numbers into growth for the chapter?

By the work that we've got laid out through our strategic plan. We will see that the membership will continue to grow because of the positive work that we have done. And hopefully we're going to see a more diverse community with respects to the hiring practices in our community. The mayor has just put together a very strong committee to really look at the DEI work that's needed and the change that's needed in the city government and in our school system. So as we partner with city officials, with our other business partners, we're going to see positive change in our community. I really believe that.

Zorn, speaking with WAMC Thursday, congratulated Powell and said that he didn’t see another bid for branch presidency in his future.

“I’m going to reorganize with a group of people, and we’re going to do our own thing and bring our own flavor to the table," he said. "Because I still feel like one of the reasons why I did run is that I want change and I feel more can be done – so, I plan on doing that.”

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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