President Says NAACP Votes To Boycott NJ Pulse
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 • 7:46am
PATERSON, NJ – The president of the Paterson chapter of the NAACP said its members voted last week to support a boycott of the NJ Pulse monthly newspaper and its controversial publisher, Sirrano Keith Baldeo.
The Rev. Kenneth Clayton, the NAACP president, said the vote among the members who attended last Thursday night’s meeting was unanimous. Clayton said he and the other members were displeased with the negativity in the Pulse.
The boycott is being organized by Ernest Rucker, a political ally of former City Councilman Aslon Goow, who has engaged in ongoing disputes with Baldeo during the past three years. Rucker said he also has gotten support for the boycott from various clergy members in the city, including the Rev. Dr. James A. Kuykendall and the Rev. Albert T. Rowe.
Baldeo, who is involved with the Christian Heritage movement, questioned the accuracy of Clayton’s comments regarding the NAACP vote. He said he would “demand” that Paterson pastors attend his Christian Heritage meeting on March 22 at the Eastside high school campus.
“My work in God is to move his Kingdom forward,’’ Baldeo wrote when asked for a response to the NAACP boycott vote. “There are pastors who would try and stop me, boycott whatever, tell those evil men they are on notice. All the churches that I can reach will answer for their church and their responsibility to this community.’’
Baldeo added, “I've already exposed the evil in government. Based on Clayton's actions I am now setting my sights on the churches. This evil in the church will end, as long as I have something to say about it.”
As part of the boycott, Rucker said he would be encouraging Patersonians not to read the Pulse and not to support its advertisers. Kuykendall called Baldeo “a cancer to our community” said his “so-called news coverage” was unfair. “He has slandered people and he has erroneously printed information about the leaders of this community,’’ the reverend added.
Kuykendall and Rowe said their support of Rucker’s boycott reflected their own personal positions and not any decision by their churches.
