The D.C. Council on Tuesday unanimously approved two emergency authorization grants totaling $3.5 million to lure the headquarters of the 97-year-old NAACP from Baltimore to the nation?s capital.
Washington Mayor Anthony Williams said Monday he expects the city to sign an agreement in the next several days to bring the NAACP headquarters to the District. Formerly headquarted in New York, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People moved its headquarters to Baltimore in 1986.
Richard McIntire, spokesman for the national NAACP, emphasized that any agreement with D.C. still must be approved by the civil rights organization?s board at its February meeting. He said the national headquarters has talked to several prospective buyers for the current building on Mt. Hope Drive in Baltimore.
Michael Hodge, of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development in Washington, said general discussions for the proposed move actually began five years ago and the current negotiations follow more than 18 months of work to find an arrangement and a location that was viable for the District and the NAACP.
The expected construction of a new building would be part of the Anacostia Gateway Project, at the foot of a historic stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast Washington. The project is expected to have a positive impact on the surrounding neighborhood, not far from the historic home of Frederick Douglass and Smithsonian Institution?s Museum of African-American History and Culture. It also will be across the Anacostia River from the new baseball park being built for the Washington Nationals.
“They?ll have one of the best views of the Capitol and the Mall in the city,” Hodge said.
McIntire said Baltimore and state officials, including Mayor Martin O?Malley and Gov. Robert Ehrlich, expended “a great deal of effort and energy” in trying to keep the national headquarters in Maryland, but ultimately the opening for the organization in D.C. was too great to pass up. The proximity to Capitol Hill will help advance the organization?s advocacy goals, McIntire said, and also foster closer relationships with its civil rights partners and other nonprofits based in Washington.
“It?s also an opportunity to be part of the revitalization of an area that?s home to a significant segment of the population that we serve,” McIntire said.
“I proudly supported the legislation to relocate the NAACP to the District of Columbia,” Council Member and Washington Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty said. “I can?t think of a more fitting backdrop for the nation?s oldest, most prominent civil rights organization.”
