Sister Sharon Eubank and Karen Boykin-Towns celebrated the collaboration between the NAACP and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a joint Detroit News op-ed Saturday.
The op-ed was published the day before President Russell M. Nelson is scheduled to speak at the NAACP national convention at the Cobo Center in Detroit.
The organizations' partnership "has become something of a parable in what coaction can accomplish in an era too often marked by division," writes Sister Eubank, first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, and Boykin-Towns, vice chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors.
The collaboration started with an effort to restore a historic Mississippi NAACP field office and has since grown to include personal finance workshops and an initiative that connects BYU law school alumni with people who need help with minor legal issues, Sister Eubank and Boykin-Towns write.
"By having the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak in the same city and space where (Dr. Martin Luther) King (Jr.) once marched, the NAACP is demonstrating once again that it stands on the side of collaboration and cooperation," they write. "And, at a time when we have too many social divisions and partitions, this emerging partnership between the NAACP and the Church echoes, in some small way, King’s call in Cobo Hall to transform 'the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.'"