The Journal Gazette, 600 W. Main St., Fort Wayne IN

The city’s former NAACP president stepped back into the public eye Thursday with a new group bearing a remarkably similar name but, he says, a separate purpose.

The Rev. Michael Latham said Thursday the NAAFD – National African-American Founders’ District – isn’t meant to compete with the local branch of the NAACP.

Even so, the organization’s first appearance at a Marathon gas station at Hanna and Oxford streets addressed a racially charged incident the local NAACP hasn’t.

Latham and two ministers of “the Trinity Group” – the Revs. Victor L. Nelson and James Thomas – joined the Indian owners of the gas station to discuss the firing of an employee who “laid hands on” an unruly young black customer.

Latham said the scuffle happened because of cultural differences and would be addressed with diversity training for other employees.

“They have dealt with that employee and dealt with him swiftly,” he said.

The gas station is just up the street from Renaissance Baptist Church, where Latham will celebrate his 20th year as a pastor next month.

Nearly half that time, from 1999 until last year, he also served as local NAACP president.

Latham earned praise for his work with youths, but membership dropped off toward the end of his tenure, and he was criticized publicly as a divisive and ineffective leader by some members.

Personal issues piled on to the challenge of leading a struggling chapter. He filed for personal bankruptcy in late 2007, spent months recovering from an unspecified illness and lost his job as the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s chaplain when the agency eliminated his position.

Those issues, and especially another recent illness, contributed to his decision to form a new community organization, Latham said.

“That was the time God basically sat me down and talked to me,” he said. “I want people to understand, I have a calling by God to do what I do.”

But the NAACP wasn’t the ideal venue for his community advocacy and his desire to inject his religious beliefs more into the work he’s doing, he said.

The NAACP has its bylaws, and Latham said he considers the Bible as the bylaws that direct his work.

“I just didn’t want to do it any longer under the umbrella of the NAACP,” he said, adding he has great respect for that organization.

Another local minister, the Rev. Bill McGill, was elected president of the NAACP after Latham stepped down and has since doubled the chapter’s membership.

McGill said he has no problem with Latham – or anyone – forming a new group that could benefit the community.

But he is concerned that the name chosen for the group so closely mirrors the long-established NAACP, he said.

Nelson, Latham’s Trinity Group partner, said the NAAFD hopes to attain non-profit status and hasn’t decided whether it will charge for membership as the NAACP does. Its focus will be education, with one goal to create a curriculum on local black history for schools, Nelson said.

“We are not the NAACP,” he said. “We are not trying to emulate the NAACP.”

At the gas station Thursday, Latham and his colleagues were joined by station co-owner Sunny Singh, who said he believes the terminated employee’s behavior was an exception, not the rule.

But signs pointed to a difficult situation between the Indian-owned gas station and the mostly black neighborhood it serves. A cashier worked behind a thick window in view of a flat-screen television with feed from multiple security cameras.

NAACP President McGill says some community members, including Latham, called the NAACP about alleged problems at the gas station.

The child’s parents were urged to file a formal complaint with the NAACP, but no one has done so, McGill said.

aturner@jg.net