Suspensions Withdrawn For Two Greater Sac NAACP Members

By Robert J. Hansen | OBSEREVER Staff Writer Two members of the Greater Sacramento NAACP have had their suspensions over purported financial impropriety withdrawn, according to documents obtained by The OBSERVER. Ken Nelson and Velma Sykes both received letters last month from the NAACP’s national branch, which issued the suspensions. The OBSERVER reported in November that then-President Betty Williams and five other Greater Sacramento NAACP members were suspended after the branch’s annual financial report showed Williams and others may have engaged in financial impropriety benefitting their businesses. Nelson and Sykes both told The OBSERVER their suspensions should have never happened. “There was no reason to suspend my membership considering I wasn’t an officer of the branch at the time,” Nelson said in a phone interview. “It was found that there wasn’t any wrongdoing,” Sykes said. “They suspended me for something I didn’t do.” Nelson said the suspension hurt him given how long he has served the Sacramento NAACP. Those who serve the NAACP do so as volunteers. “To find myself in this predicament has been a bitter pill to swallow,” Nelson said. The four other members, including Williams, remain suspended and under investigation by the national NAACP, which did not...