THE NOW-FORMER NAACP PITTSBURGH PRESIDENT, DAYLON A. DAVIS
National NAACP won’t hold new election until local membership increases
On Friday, March 14, 2025, Daylon A. Davis turned in his resignation as president of the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch.
The National NAACP accepted his resignation.
Three days later, on Monday, March 17, 2025, members of the National NAACP held a meeting with members of the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch. It was held at Freedom Unlimited, on Wylie Avenue, in the Hill District. The meeting turned out to be closed to all media, even though a Facebook post from the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch instructed that “all community members,” not just current local NAACP members, “show up and make their voices heard.”
The Facebook post sent shockwaves throughout some of Pittsburgh’s Black community, as the post stated that the meeting would be “more than just a meeting—it is a defining moment for our community. This meeting will determine whether there is a future for the NAACP in Pittsburgh.”
The waves caught the attention of former NAACP Pittsburgh Branch President Tim Stevens, who is now the Chairman and CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project, which, in many ways, mirrors the overall mission and vision of the NAACP. Stevens attended the special meeting. It was the first NAACP Pittsburgh Branch meeting Stevens said he attended in 20 years since his days as Pittsburgh Branch President.
When the New Pittsburgh Courier showed up to attend and report on the meeting, the National NAACP requested that no media be present. The Courier obliged, but remained outside the Freedom Unlimited building until the nearly two-hour meeting concluded.
NAACP PITTSBURGH BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER ANGEL GOBER, LEFT, SPEAKS WITH NOW-FORMER NAACP PITTSBURGH BRANCH PRESIDENT DAYLON DAVIS, MARCH 17. (Photos by Chief Ikhana Hal-Makina)
Davis had been president of the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch since Jan. 1, 2023. His tenure as president turned out to be two years and almost three months.
When the meeting was adjourned, Davis was among the first people to exit the meeting. In an interview outside the Freedom Unlimited building on March 17, Davis told the Courier that he resigned because he had accepted a new job that won’t permit him to serve simultaneously as NAACP Pittsburgh Branch President. He declined to share what his new job will be, but said information on his new job would be released on Monday, March 24.
As more NAACP Pittsburgh Branch members left the Freedom Unlimited building, some of the members told the Courier about much of the meeting’s details. They spoke to the Courier on the condition of anonymity.
Some of the members told the Courier that there had been, at times, disagreements over the past months between some of the actions of Davis as president and members of his own executive committee.
It wasn’t hard for the Courier to confirm that information; even in the Facebook post that the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch wrote inviting all to the meeting, the post read that, “I know that there have been challenges and trying times between past and present leadership of the branch and its executive committee.”
Exact details on the “trying times” or “challenges” were not disclosed or confirmed by the Courier. However, when pressed on the issue by the Courier to Davis as to if those alleged issues caused him to resign, Davis told the Courier, “it had nothing to do with my resignation.” Davis added: “And we have wonderful people in place.”
NOW-FORMER NAACP PITTSBURGH BRANCH PRESIDENT DAYLON DAVIS WITH NAACP PITTSBURGH BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER ROY BLANKENSHIP. (Photo by Chief Ikhana Hal-Makina)
Davis told the Courier that the meeting was “specifically about getting membership engaged, turning out people who have always supported the NAACP. They (the national national office) want people to come back to the NAACP, especially to update their membership information.”
The Courier has learned that the meeting featured Ericka Cain from the NAACP National Office. Her official title is Vice President of Governance, Compliance and Training for the NAACP. She is based in Texas. She led the meeting from Texas via Zoom. Others also joined via computer, but most of the meeting attendees were in-person at Freedom Unlimited.
Some members of the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch told the Courier on the condition of anonymity that Cain wants to hold an election to determine the next Pittsburgh Branch president and executive officers, but not until more Pittsburgh-based active members update their contact information (email, phone number) and/or more people join the Pittsburgh NAACP.
The Courier has learned that there are some 9,000 inactive Pittsburgh NAACP members. There are 90- 100 active members who have their contact information updated in the NAACP computer system. But there are “several hundred” active members who do not have their contact information updated. Those “several hundred” active members are whom Cain wants the local Pittsburgh Branch to go after. Without those “several hundred” active members’ contact information, those “several hundred” people are not allowed to participate in any local NAACP election.
A little over two years ago, when Davis was elected president of the local NAACP, Davis said that 100 members or so participated in the election. However, this time, the National NAACP wants to do things differently. Instead of just the current 90-100 active members participating in this next election, they want more people to participate. Sources told the Courier that the National NAACP would be happy if “half” of the “several hundred” people would update their contact information. The Courier estimates that if “half” the people did as such, the local NAACP would have roughly 450 total people participating in the upcoming election, instead of roughly 100.
Davis told the Courier that the NAACP now holds its elections via an electronic process, which means in order to have a vote, a member must have a valid email address and phone number.
“They wanted to see if there was community support,” Davis told the Courier of the National NAACP office. “That’s what this meeting was about.”
Davis tried to jumpstart the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch more into the forefront in recent months. In late January, the local NAACP led the charge in requesting that then-acting Pittsburgh Police Chief Christopher Ragland hold at least three meetings with the NAACP and other community organizations before he was officially sworn-in as police chief. As it turned out, Ragland resigned from the police force altogether, but not because of the NAACP’s wishes.
The NAACP Pittsburgh Branch put out a statement condemning what the organization called an offensive display at the October 2024 Mount Pleasant (Westmoreland County) Halloween Parade. A woman dressed up as former Vice President Kamala Harris was walking in the parade with her head down, hands tied to the back of a truck that was in support of current President Donald Trump.
The NAACP Pittsburgh Branch was also present during the condemnation of Pittsburgh Police officers who were in contact with a Black man, Jim Rogers. While in police custody in October 2021, Rogers suffered a medical emergency after being tasered multiple times by an officer and died the next day at the hospital.
Now, the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch is back to square one. Who will be the next president of the longest-running civil rights organization in Pittsburgh? The organization in Pittsburgh that featured the likes of Alma Speed Fox, William Randolph, Homer S. Brown, Charles H. Foggie, Byrd Brown, Harvey Adams Jr., Tim Stevens, M. Gayle Moss, Constance Parker and the like?
It’s anybody’s guess.
Right now, the interim president is Jamaal Craig. First Vice-President is Terri Minor Spencer. It’s unclear if Craig will eventually run for president, or if someone else will emerge.
As for Davis, he told the Courier that when he became president, he “inherited a lot of complications of the local unit, but that’s not why I’m leaving.” He said that he brought younger people into the fold at the Pittsburgh NAACP, and that he was proud to have appointed an LGBTQIA+ Chair “to have a pathway and avenue into that community here in Pittsburgh.”
PITTSBURGH NAACP LIFETIME MEMBER MURIEL FOX ALIM wants to see the local branch prosper for years to come.
Muriel Fox Alim, daughter of the late Alma Speed Fox (who is known in Pittsburgh as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement), told the Courier after the closed-door meeting that the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch “needs the support of the community, and we need to increase the number of members back to what it used to be. Any and everyone in this community, in this Greater Pittsburgh area, particularly now, needs the support of an organization like the NAACP that has the foundations of civil rights and has the resources to fight for us nationally and locally.”
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