By Cindy Kranz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The new president of the Cincinnati area NAACP pledged Sunday morning to get more people of color into voting booths this year.

Dr. Calvert Smith (right) takes his oath as president of the local chapter of the NAACP as first vice-president Ishton Morton applauds. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

"Our primary goal is to get as many people registered to vote as we can and get them to the polls to vote," Calvert H. Smith said in an interview after installation of NAACP leaders Sunday at Metropolitan C.M.E. Church in Walnut Hills. "That will bring about the kind of systemic changes that are needed for our people in this city."

The NAACP is developing a comprehensive plan, Mr. Smith said. The group plans to collaborate with other organizations to seek a high voter turnout in city elections.

The new officers and executive committee of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were installed by Milton Hinton, a former president.

Mr. Smith, a 66-year-old University of Cincinnati education professor, succeeds Norma Holt Davis. He will serve a two-year term.

The local branch was chartered in 1915, just six years after the national organization was founded. Mr. Hinton told the officers that the need for the NAACP's presence in the city today is as great, if not greater, than any time in its 88 years.

Mr. Smith promised that the NAACP will take an active part in the Peace Down the Way Coalition, which has called for a moratorium on violence and pledges to fight black-on-black violence. More than 75 percent of the city's 65 murder victims last year were African-Americans.

But black-on-black violence is just a symptom, Mr. Smith said.

"Once we solve the primary problems - employment and education - for people in this city, those problems will decrease. When people don't have jobs, they don't have access to a good quality of life. They live off of other people."

E-mail ckranz@enquirer.com.