Staff Reports
MOULTRIE — The Colquitt County Branch of the NAACP will hold its annual banquet Sunday, Nov. 15, at 6 p.m. at Friendship Baptist Church. The theme for this year’s celebration is “NAACP 1909-2009; Appreciating the Past, Striving for a Brighter Future,” to celebrate 100 years of serving humanity.
The speaker for this year’s event is the Rev. Charles L. White Jr., national field director and director of field organizing of the NAACP.
Educated in the public schools of Charleston County, S.C., White continues to distinguish himself as a leader and mentor. White said he believes In ministry beyond the walls of the church and is thankful for the opportunity to serve God through service to God’s people.
Reared as a member of the Wesley United Methodist Church, the Hollywood, S.C., native earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious studies from the University of South Carolina, later entering Gammon Theological Seminary of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where he earned a Masters of Divinity with a concentration in Christian education.
An ordained elder and full member of the South Carolina Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, White served as a lay campus minister at the University of South Carolina and Columbia College. He served six years as senior pastor of the Clover Parish that includes the Clover Chapel, Green Pond and Mount Harmony United Methodist churches, where he began numerous ministries and led in the development of several church and community initiatives.
In addition to his current role, White has served as the national director of field operations and director for the Southeast Region of the NAACP, the largest of the NAACP’s seven regions, where he led seven states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee).
His civil rights undertakings include becoming the first African-American member of the University of South Carolina Chaplains Association, the first African-American member of the Clover Rotary Club and winning a precedent-setting 1993 verdict against the Buffalo Room in North Augusta, S. C. for refusing to serve him and five other NAACP officials because of their race. That was the first time in the state’s history that an African-American citizen recovered monetary damages for race discrimination using the claim of outrage. The suit led to a stronger public accommodations law being adopted by the South Carolina Legislature.
He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the Center for African American Male Research, Success and Leadership at the University of West Georgia, People For the American Way, African American Ministers Leadership Council Leadership Team, and the American Red Cross Minority Advisory Committee.
White is married to the former Adrienne Thompson and has two sons, Dwayne, who serves in the U.S. Army, and Alexander, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina and a United States Air Force Reservist; and one grandson, Dwayne Jr. The family resides in Rogers, Ark.
