By Kiarra Solomon
The Pennsylvania NAACP Youth and College Division recently launched the iMatter Campaign in Philadelphia, as a part of the NAACP’s national campaign. The focus of the iMatter Campaign is to improve community safety by addressing the problem of gun violence and police brutality. Every day in the United States 83 people die as a result of gun violence. Black males between the ages of 15 and 19 are five times more likely than their white counterparts and twice as likely as Hispanics to die from gunfire.
The three main goals of the iMatter Campaign are to increase the diversity of local police department across the nation accompanied by adequate diversity training, enhance surveillance and accountability of police activity through body and dashboard cameras, and to increase collaboration between law enforcement and communities to establish a citizen police review board that offers policy recommendations for officer involved killings.
“It is time for all constituents to join together, to address the violence in Philadelphia,” aid Lauren Footman, President of the PA NAACP Youth and College Division. As citizens, we must make sure we are registered to vote and educate our communities on why civic engagement is so crucial. It is our hope that the iMatter Campaign helps re-energize and re-commit the people of Philadelphia and its surrounding communities to fighting for civil rights as those before us.
The NAACP Youth and College Division kicked off the first phase of the the iMatter Campaign with a call to action to register voters in Pennsylvania and across the nation before the October 6th deadline. Members and supporters of the NAACP are encouraged to register as many people they can during the next few weeks. The NAACP hosted a March on Twitter on Tuesday. The purpose of the virtual march was to invite participants to voice their opinions on police brutality and its effect on communities. Finally, the NAACP is urging citizens to call their State Senators and Representatives and urge them to support community policing strategies that will prevent future police killings.
For more information about the iMatter Campaign or interviews please contact Kiarra Solomon, Press and Publicity Chair, at 267-405-3292 or [email protected].
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