NAACP leader Hazel Dukes blasted a pro-charter-school parent from The Bronx as “doing the business of slave masters” in a shocking e-mail defending the civil-rights organization’s lawsuit against city plans to expand charters.
Dukes made the stunning attack in response to a Hispanic woman who wrote a heartfelt letter urging the civil-rights leader to pull the NAACP out of a lawsuit aimed at blocking the expansion or co-location of 19 charters in city school buildings.
“If you and the NAACP continue on this horrible lawsuit against my daughter’s school and the fellow 18 charter schools,” Janette Ramos said, “it will not be the best legacy to leave behind.”
Ramos’s daughter attends kindergarten at Bronx Success Academy charter school.
Dukes issued a terse response.
“You are not a member of the NAACP and don’t understand that you are doing the business of slave masters,” Dukes said in a June 1 response.
Ramos said Dukes should step down as New York chapter president of the NAACP for using such language.