Mayor Martin O?Malley and other city officials met with Bruce Gordon, president and chief executive of the NAACP, at City Hall on Thursday to explore the possibility of keeping the 97-year-old organization from relocating its headquarters to Washington, D.C.
The NAACP moved to Baltimore in 1986 from New York City.
“The meeting was an opportunity for the mayor to have a one-on-one, face-to-face with Bruce Gordon and find a way to work together with Baltimore and keep the NAACP headquarters here,” said Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for O?Malley. “The Mayor?s Office is willing to work with them and needed to find out what we can do.”
“It?s still our plan to move to Washington, D.C., but President Gordon had a good meeting with Mayor O?Malley,” said NAACP spokesman John White. “The mayor expressed his strong desire for the NAACP to remain in Baltimore and his staff presented a number of proposals.”
White said there is no timetable for the move. The organization owns its building at 4805 Mount Hope Drive. The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, at 8 W. 26th St., would not be affected by a move of the national headquarters.
