By Mark Trainer
Staff Writer

Washington — More Hispanics are assuming leadership positions in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), whose mission of civil rights advocacy stretches back over a century. Chapters of the organization in New Jersey, Connecticut and Georgia have recently elected Hispanic presidents.

Although the NAACP is usually associated with its work on behalf of black Americans, its charter envisions a broader mission: “to promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States.”

The group’s leadership has been multiracial for most of its history. Its founders in 1909 were a diverse group that included, among others, W.E.B. Du Bois, a black historian and activist; Henry Moskowitz, a Romanian Jewish immigrant; and Mary White Ovington, a white social activist.

In December 2010 David Alcantara, who came to the United States from Honduras as a child, was elected president of his NAACP chapter in New Jersey. The chapter is 95 percent black, with the other 5 percent comprising Hispanics, Asians and whites.

Alcantara practices law in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He feels that he and other non-black minorities have benefitted from the work done by the majority-black membership of the NAACP, and he sought a leadership position in order to join in that work.

“I have said to my members, ‘We minorities also have an obligation not only to be proud of our country, but to respect both the laws and the rights of other groups, whether they’re minorities or not,’” Alcantara said.

“When the black [membership of the NAACP] fight for these rights and they get them with their blood, we just simply benefit from it. We’ve got to help them help us. Because when they get it right, they don’t just get it for themselves, they get it for all of us.”

The Greater Waterbury, Connecticut, chapter elected Victor Diaz — who is of Dominican descent — as its president in December 2010.

Diaz became involved with the NAACP several years earlier when he was invited to a meeting. “I noticed that we are facing the same issues, but nobody was really linking those two communities together and addressing the issues together,” he told National Public Radio. “More people are going to be able to see what this organization does and open the doors for more individuals … whatever color, instead of just thinking that NAACP is for a specific group or for another group.”