Ali Canada, Oklahoma NAACP PAC chairman at OK NAACP 80th Annual conference in Oklahoma City on 11/9/2012
Ali Canada, explains his work as Political Action Committee (PAC) chairman for the Oklahoma NAACP. It involves voter registration, advocacy work for death penalty inmates and anything that is political in Oklahoma.
His most recent PAC activity for the NAACP was building coalitions and going out into communities particularly the ones of people of color, to register them to vote. Canada said that they registered voters from the African American, Latino and Asian communities. He went into college campuses to register students to vote as well. Canada took it a step further by taking his voter registration drive into the swearing-in ceremonies where he registered immigrants to vote after they had been sworn in as US citizens.
He also explained the voter registration process by the organization to be bi-partisan (the NAACP works with all regardless of political affiliation). Canada said that one of the groups the Oklahoma NAACP formed a coalition with to do the voter registration was the League of Women’s Voters.
At last count, Canada recalls Oklahoma NAACP in coalition w/other groups to have registered at least 72,000 voters for this 2012 election year. To that astounding number, I said OH LORD ! That’s a lot!
At a prior NAACP meeting, Canada said that he had communicated to state legislators about how they had been doing things in Oklahoma has to change in order for them to get things done in the state.
Earlier, Mr. Canada presented his background as a political activist, labor union negotiator, regional organizer for MoveOn.org (Texas, Oklahoma & Arkansas) and is heavily involved in politics. He said that he’s so political that he wakes up in the morning Political. One of his slogans is: “You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you”.
This interview was recorded on Nov. 9, 2012 at the Oklahoma NAACP 80th Annual state conference held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Oklahoma City.
