State NAACP President the Rev. William Barber and national NAACP President Ben Jealous will participate along with the leaders of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, NC Advocates for Children, and the NC Justice Center.

Christian Faith Baptist is, notably, the home parish of the Rev. David Forbes, hero of the civil rights movement in his student days in Raleigh 50 years ago. Forbes is featured in the Cash Michaels film, "Obama in NC: The Path to History," which was on the Indy cover Aug. 25.

Forbes invites "every person of good will" to attend the event, according to the announcement sent by the state NAACP's office in Durham:

Major Announcement Planned by NAACP and Advocates: First Legal Action Towards Stopping Resegregation in Wake County and Across North Carolina.

On Saturday, September 25, 2010, at 9 a.m., The North Carolina NAACP along with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, NC Advocates for Children, NC Justice Center and other advocate organizations will unveil the first legal strategies challenging resegregation. The NAACP is also announcing plans for National NAACP President/CEO, Ben Jealous along with North Carolina NAACP President, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II to join together in announcing this major new action and make a special mobilization plea for the One Nation March on Washington 10-2-10. Rev. David Forbes, founding member of SNCC and pastor of Christian Faith Baptist Church, will host the event and has welcomed every other person of good will to gather at Christian Faith Baptist Church (509 Hilltop Drive, Raleigh, NC 27610, 919-833-5834) to participate in the Hour-Long Announcement.

President Jealous is the co-convenor of the One Nation March in Washington, DC on the following Saturday, October 2nd, about Jobs, Justice and Education. Several bus loads of North Carolinians have already committed to participate with tens of thousands of Black, Brown, and White Americans to affirm their allegiance to One Nation with liberty and justice for all.

BACKGROUND: The N. C. NAACP filed a major civil rights complaint with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education against the School Board of Wayne County, 45 miles east of Raleigh, on December 1, 2009. That same day Wake County School Board Chair, Ron Margiotta, joined by four new members, swore to uphold the constitutions of the United States and North Carolina. For the next nine months, while Margiotta and his anti-diversity caucus began dismantling the nationally recognized diverse schools in Wake County, Federal officials visited Wayne County several times, checking on how the tax payers' money was spent by the School Board there.

The North Carolina NAACP helped convene a team of lawyers from the N.C. Justice Center, the NAACP, the UNC Center for Civil Rights, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Legal Aid of North Carolina to analyze the statements, actions and plans of Margiotta and his anti-diversity caucus. Rev. Dr. Barber said, "Resegregation plans have resulted and are resulting in similar high-poverty high schools across the state-in Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Wilmington, Halifax county, and other areas. Our NAACP local branches have watched this trend with great anguish and deep concern."

Speaking from Washington DC, today, where he is a lead panelist at the Faith in Action National Briefing on Education Barber said, "The whole nation is watching what we do in Raleigh." "Will we save the nationally-recognized Wake County diversity/student achievement model"? "Or will we allow the resegregationists to go back to unconstitutional, racially identifiable high-poverty schools, that deprive minority and poor children of equal opportunity to excellent teachers, resources, and social networks"? "The NAACP will never turn back."

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Both are good news.

[Update: By popular demand, I will attempt to answer briefly the question: What did Goldman say?

She said: She's "thrilled" the Chamber and WEP are bringing Alves back. Student assignment issues are complicated, and it's "vitally important" that student achievement be added to the mix of factors the board will use to draw assignment zones. She doesn't think the board majority will ever again adopt a "number" for diversity — e.g., the old goal of no more than 40 percent of students in any school eligible for the F&R (free and reduced) lunch program — but she'll be pleased if Alves can find a way to "encompass" diversity while also fulfilling the board majority's goals of proximity, choice and stability.

She supports the work of the Student Assignment Committee, she said, but just as she's been saying about hiring a new superintendent, it's never wrong to hire "a professional to do a professional job." (John Tedesco can make of that what he will.)

Goldman said she talked with Alves at length when he was here, and while she didn't agree with everything he said, she liked what she heard overall. "I believe that bringing some different views will help come up with a compromise," she said. At another point, she seemed to agree with Alves that the fewer zones, the better: "I believe that the less we divide up the county, the better off we will be," she said.

"I want to be very clear," Goldman said. "I do not support creating more high-poverty schools. I do not support segregation of any shape or form. I do not support crowded classrooms of students who are not getting the support they deserve."

Goldman emphasized that she was speaking only for herself, not the board majority. She raised one big question about the scheme that Tedesco's committee seemed to like, which has no base schools for anyone, only a "menu" idea under which parents would list the schools they want and get one of them — probably.

"When I look at this, quite frankly, from a birds-eye view, I wonder," Goldman said, "why do we need to completely reinvent the [student assignment] plan? Why can't we stick with what's good, make it better, make those improvements [meaning more stability] and solve some problems and issues and get back to focusing on student achievement ...?

"If I had my dream come true for this plan, every child would have a base assignment, a true calendar option, opportunities to apply to a magnet system as it exists or as closely as possible to the way it exists now, and perhaps we look more closely at a transfer policy" — allowing easier transfers to schools with empty seats.]

Alves, you'll recall, is the guru of "controlled choice" plans who visited in July, courtesy of the Chamber and WEP. He told us that assignment zones of the kind sought by the new Wake school board majority could be drawn up to achieve greater stability in student assignments without necessarily resulting in "have" and "have-not" zones — but not unless the board majority pays close attention to the critical issues of fairness, balance and diversity across zones.

Board Chair Ron Margiotta quicky dismissed Alves' point, saying the majority would focus on its desire for neighborhood schools and just trust that the outcome will be fair — it'll be fair to his suburban constituents, anyway, is what he might as well have said. And shortly, John Tedesco, who chairs the student assignment committee, rolled out a scheme — it doesn't rise to the level of an actual plan — that appeared on its face to be anything but fair.

But Tedesco called for community input, and the Chamber and WEP are seizing on that opening by paying Alves to draft a controlled-choice plan for Wake over the next 6-8 weeks. Alves is being asked to base his plan on proximity, choice and stability — the school board majority's big-three values — and one more: student achievement.

There's a strong body of opinion, of course, that says diversity in assignments across zones is crucial to achievement for all students — and Goldman was emphatic that she wants to be fair to A-L-L (she spellled it out) students. Alves made it clear when he visited that he shares that view about diversity.

Goldman was the only school board member to attend today's press conference. She said she'll welcome Alves' input, which — not to belabor or overstate the obvious — could force Margiotta and the rest of the Majority Five (Tedesco, Chris Malone, Deborah Prickett) to pay attention. Because without Goldman, they aren't the majority on the deeply divided, 5-4 school board.

Goldman fielded questions afterward and had a good deal to say. I want to listen to her comments again before going on with this so, so — more later; or (since I have other obligations) it may be tomorrow. But for now, I'll say there was a ray of sunshine for diversity supporters who are thrilled to see Alves back in the fray.

Webb's term doesn't expire for two more years. His replacement will be chosen by a committee of the Wake County Democratic Party, which was already scheduled to meet next week — on Tuesday, Sept. 14 — to select a successor for ex-Chair Jack Nichols. Nichols resigned after becoming a candidate for Wake Commissioner in the 2010 elections in November. He's taking on Republican incumbent Paul Coble.