Nimrod Chapel Jr., age 41, is challenging 20-year incumbent Mary Ratliff for president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP. The election by NAACP delegates will be held Saturday, Sept. 24.
A former trial attorney and veteran counsel for state government, Chapel is president of the Jefferson City Chapter of the NAACP. His current position with the State of Missouri is Presiding Commissioner of the Administrative Hearing Commission in the Office of Administration. He holds his legal degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
Chapel sees himself following the national NAACP’s trend toward new and young leadership, along the lines of board chair Roslyn Brock, age 46, and president and CEO Benjamin Jealous, age 38. “I’m a new voice with new energy and new technology,” Chapel said.
The St. Louis American spoke with him about his candidacy.
The American: What is the position and what does it entail?
Nimrod Chapel Jr.: I am running for president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP. The State Conference is the entity charged with working with local units to address large statewide-type issues more than the local units do. It works closely with developing units’ links between the national organization and local members.
The American: Why are you the guy?
Nimrod Chapel Jr.: I’ve work within the NAACP since college, when I was president of the Oklahoma State University branch back in the early ‘90s, and I’ve had a close relationship with the organization since then. The things I see in terms of what the organization aught to do if I were president include building coalitions around issues relating to the mission and vision of the NAACP and doing this with a broad range of organizations and entities.
It includes use of technology to ensure the message of the organization reaches as many people as possible in a way they are prepared to receive it. In the past we’ve had phone trees, and they were very effective at one time. Now we have Facebook, Twitter and blogs. In fact, www.vote4nimrod.blogspot.com is my blog.
A third thing, the organization at the state level in particular would benefit by engaging individual members or people who are interested in becoming members to use their expertise as professionals – lawyers, people who are experienced in dealing with the public or media relations; the range of experience of our members is very deep, and we aught to use it in a better way.
The American: How many people are in the race, and who votes?
Nimrod Chapel Jr.: Mary Ratliff is the only other person in the race. To vote, you must be a member of the NAACP and elected as a delegate. The voters are people who have been sent from the units with some instruction on how to vote on the issue.
The American: So it’s an insider’s game.
Nimrod Chapel Jr.: Pretty much
The American: How is your inside game?
Nimrod Chapel Jr.: That’s a good question. To be brutally honest, I hope that it’s good. My desire to run and to lead the organization was born out of my love for the organization and the work we do. I’ve talked to people throughout the state, in large and small communities, big units and small units. Not to say I’ve talked to everybody, but I’ve talked to a good portion of them and people seemed supportive of the ideas I talked about. It’s not a condemnation of the past of the organization, but a commentary on the work that could be done and how that work should be done.
