Thoughts from the 2026 NAACP National Convention in Chicago

by Tanya Pietrkowski

I attended the 2026 NAACP National Convention in Chicago as an observer on behalf of the Bulloch County NAACP. This year, I was struck by how closely history and the present live as neighbors. What was yesterday feels like today.

Yesterday, while the convention was underway, attorney Ben Crump stood with the family of Nolan Xavier Wells in Chicago and held a press conference calling for justice after another tragic loss. Today (July 23), Governor J.B. Pritzker stood with Emmett Till's family at the church where his funeral was held in 1955 and proclaimed July 25 (his birthday) as Emmett Till Day in Illinois. These are stars in a constellation that draws a map from history to today that we cannot ignore.

Chicago, sometimes called "the other Mississippi" or the "Black Metropolis," is a reminder that the Great Migration brought millions of Black Americans north to seek opportunity while carrying the enduring struggle against discrimination and violence. Yet here is a Mississippi family contending with the questionable way their son died, with few answers, living in grief like the families of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and many others. For these families, time will not erase their grief.

I was struck listening to Medgar Evers' daughter speak about her father's tenderness as he left for work on the day he was assassinated. She recalled the ordinary moments of that morning. History suddenly became intensely personal.

She quoted her mother, Myrlie Evers-Williams: "You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea."

Those words endure because they are still true.

That thought led me in another direction. I found myself reading the Library of Congress collection of interviews with formerly enslaved Americans conducted during the 1930s through the Works Progress Administration. I read several firsthand interviews conducted in southeast Georgia. Reading those accounts reminded me that living memory leaves a wider footprint than we often realize. The past remains present in the questions we are still trying to answer.

Today we face a different but equally important challenge.

How do we inspire young people to vote when confidence in so many institutions has eroded? How do we convince them that civic participation still matters when they question whether their voices make a difference and what their future holds?

These are valid questions. They may also be among the defining questions of their generation. Our economic well-being, our health, our educational opportunities, and the vitality of our communities all depend upon an engaged citizenry. How do we prepare the next generation for the work ahead?

We have to meet young people—and anyone, for that matter—where they are and listen. We have an opportunity to recruit and develop new leaders, strengthen civic education, help people understand and assert their rights, and build and strengthen institutions worthy of their trust. We must continue building coalitions across neighborhoods, counties, and states to protect free and fair elections and strengthen the institutions that make self-government possible.

We are writing the next chapter now. Our responsibility is to ensure that the next generation inherits not only the rights secured by those who came before us, but also the determination to protect and strengthen them.