The National Action Network (NAN) is a not-for-profit, civil rights organization founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton in New York City, New York, in early 1991. In a 2016 profile, Vanity Fair called Sharpton "arguably the country's most influential civil rights leader".
Organization
The organization's Board of Directors is chaired by Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon. The Board of Directors has a tradition of including those most recognized in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as it was first chaired by Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, Pastor Emeritus of Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, and former Executive Director to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In addition to Dr. Walker, the late Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. King, supported the organization and her son, Martin Luther King III, participates annually in the Keepers of the Dream Awards Dinner and National Convention.
National Action Network's Annual Convention draws more than 8,000 delegates and leaders from media, business, politics, entertainment and the civil rights from across the country. The 2007 convention featured six presidential candidates and was dubbed by the media the "Sharpton Primary". In Barack Obama's speech during the 2007 convention he said that Rev. Al Sharpton was "The voice of the voiceless and a champion for the downtrodden." In 2011 President Barack Obama delivered a keynote address at their convention, applauding NAN's activism by saying: "National Action Network is not the National 'Satisfaction' Network; it's the National 'Action' Network". At the National Action Network's convention in April of 2014 close to 7,000 people attended, making it the biggest in the history of the organization and the largest civil rights convening of the year in the nation. During the 2014 convention President Barack Obama returned to address over 1,200 convention attendees where he addressed voting rights and said "We've got to create a national network committed to taking action. We can call it the National Action Network."
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders spoke at the Silver Anniversary 2016 National Action Network Convention. "You stand up and always have against gun violence, advocate for criminal justice reform, help young people find jobs, hold corporations accountable, and in a million ways, lift up voices that often go unheard," Clinton said during her speech.
The National Action Network is headquartered in Harlem, New York and has regional offices in Washington, D.C.., Atlanta and Los Angeles. It currently has over 105 chapters in cities around the nation.
Issues of focus
The National Action Network is widely credited with drawing national attention to critical issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and the US Naval bombing exercises on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Notably, the organization was prominently involved with the police brutality cases of Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Patrick Dorismond (New York) Eric Garner (all in New York), and Michael Brown (Ferguson, Missouri).
In 1999, the organization launched The Madison Avenue Initiative (MAI), a program designed to address the inequities in the advertising industry. MAI was created after a racially charged memorandum, infamously dubbed, "The Katz Memo", was circulated among certain radio stations, stating that advertisers wanted "prospects, not suspects". The recognition of this memorandum set off an investigation into the spending practices of corporations, specifically examining whether their advertising budgets with African-American and Latino publications and advertising agencies were commensurate with their consumer bases.
In 2000, the organization launched the Truth Hamer Voter Registration and Education Initiative. The Truth Hamer Initiative set out to register one million women to vote, targeting populations in traditionally overlooked areas, such as public housing developments, transitional housing communities and rural areas.
Sharpton's organization has been heavily courted for endorsement by presidential candidates, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.