Is NAACP ask of Black student-athletes to boycott SEC schools out of bounds?

Prairie View football coach Tremaine Jackson will be the first to tell you he is an NAACP guy.

He grew up in the Acres Homes area here in Houston, watching his grandmother be a part of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, fighting for voting rights, Civil Rights, and just decency for Black people.

So Jackson supports the NAACP. But the HBCU coach is drawing the line when it comes to the nation’s oldest Black Civil Rights organization’s ask of Black college athletes to boycott SEC schools in states where gerrymandering, redistricting, and redrawing maps to dilute the Black vote are being embraced.

The NAACP has branded the movement as Out of Bounds. Jackson believes the NAACP is the one that has stepped out of bounds.

“I think they are trying to do what the NAACP does, which is fight wrong things for colored people,” Jackson said recently to the Defender. “By using this, you are using something that has nothing to do with … You’re trying to take a commodity that you think you have and make it political.”

This all became a hot-button topic last month when the Supreme Court ruled that race may not be considered when drawing congressional district maps, in a 6-3 decision in the Louisiana v. Callais case. Black professional athletes and many talking heads immediately suggested that Black athletes boycott playing for the nation’s most powerful conference in the nation in the states that either are or will practice gerrymandering.

It wasn’t long before the NAACP joined in and dominated the conversation.

That’s when the pushback came, as many questioned the notion of an organization that hasn’t been relevant to younger generations and asks so much of student-athletes. In this current college athletics environment, student-athletes competing in football and basketball in the SEC can make hundreds of thousands of dollars and into the millions because of name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, along with the revenue sharing that universities in the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12, in addition to other smaller conferences are now required to share with the athletes.

The natural question is whether the ask of turning down that type of money is realistic or fair to student-athletes and their families?

Apparently, the NAACP thinks so, and so does Houston NAACP President Bishop James Dixon.

“The money they are guaranteed, they can receive money through the portal from other colleges,” Dixon said. “I don’t think anyone underestimates the sacrificial effort that has been requested. But there will be a sacrifice.

“Our challenge is we have lived on the sacrifices of others in previous generations. We have not had to pay those prices. Now we are in a place where it’s real; the fight is real. I promise that others are making sacrifices, and it’s costly.”

The goal of the NAACP’s proposal is that by Black athletes choosing to take their talents to the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12 schools, as well as non-gerrymandering SEC states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri, the gerrymandering states will feel the pressure from the loss of top Black talents taking their sports talents elsewhere. The states where the NAACP is targeting gerrymandering and redistricting include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, where the University of Texas and Texas A&M are members of the SEC.

While most of the states are now actively redrawing maps to dilute the Black vote, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced last year that the state was redrawing its district maps after President Donald Trump asked him to find five additional seats ahead of the 2026 mid-term elections.

“You have to do what’s urgent, and states are the ones causing these racist activations at the state level,” Dixon said. “And by the way, Texas led this before the Supreme Court reached the decision. I’m surprised we haven’t been more aggressive within our state.”

While the NAACP and even the Congressional Black Caucus have strongly urged Black athletes to consider signing with schools outside the offending SEC states, there has also been a call for those athletes to consider taking their talents to HBCUs.

Jackson says that would be great, but it isn’t realistic.

“I just think they shouldn’t ask kids to do that. There has to be a better way,” said Jackson, who is the reigning SWAC Coach of the Year after guiding the Panthers to the SWAC Championship and a berth in the Celebration Bowl during his first season at the helm. “There has got to be a more educational way that we can get our point across and fight. But as we see, Black people aren’t even voting on the level that we used to vote. Let’s attack that. Let’s not ask these 17 and 18-year-olds who can get this life-changing money.

“And if you are going to do that, then why don’t you fund some Black colleges to be able to compete in the financial race.  But we ain’t talking about that.”

Billy Hawkins, a noted professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, says he understands the NAACP’s intent behind the Out of Bounds movement, but has concerns about its execution.

“I thought it was a lofty idea initially,” Hawkins said. “I think it’s a good effort to draw some attention. The implementation lacks footing. When you think of what’s going on politically, economically, in the era of college athletics now… the 60s was the last strong movement by athletes, and a little bit with the Colin Kaepernick movement and the LeBron James movement. But nothing of this magnitude.

“Some believe you shouldn’t ask a 17 or 18-year-old to do that. It’s like what we saw in the Civil Rights Movement when we had young individuals on the front line. It’s totally different now.”

University of Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari has paid attention to the NAACP movement and is sympathetic to the cause. Calipari, who also coached at Kentucky, where he developed many players who entered the NBA, hopes that all states will revert once the political power shifts.

Apparently, the SEC is concerned enough about the potential impact of the movement that it has hired veteran crisis manager Jarvis Stewart, who is Black, to push back against the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus.

“I get what they are saying, and I don’t blame them for trying to say, `This ain’t right, and we need to do this.’” Calipari said to the Defender. “You have these Republican institutions that make it hard.

“I haven’t thought a whole lot about it, and I’m happy our state wasn’t one of them. I’m happy we weren’t in that mix. But my main concern is going forward, that this doesn’t become a yearly thing. Getting things back to being right would be okay, let’s just do that.”

But Dixon isn’t about leaving anything to chance. He believes Black people, particularly Black athletes, must act now to help in this voting rights fight.

“The states that are imposing these egregious policies that are racist and are applying for African Americans must feel the pain immediately,” he said. “Black athletes should not be contributing to the coffers of those who are funding what I call the plantation plan. There are plenty of plans that strip us of all rights and all freedoms that return African Americans to plantation status.

“In order to disrupt the plantation plan, we’ve got to discontinue adding financial fuel to their effort.”

Still, Jackson struggles with the NAACP’s ask and methodology. Jackson believes that instead of asking student athletes to boycott SEC schools, the NAACP should equip them with the knowledge to use their platforms to bring about change at those state schools.

While not campaigning to leave Prairie View, Jackson used himself as an example of how he would handle it if an SEC school came calling for his coaching services.

“If Mississippi State called Tremaine Jackson to come be the head football coach, I’m not going to go? I’m going,” Jackson said. “I’m going, and I’m going to try to effect change while I’m in the chair because I understand that change needs to be made. Somebody has got to go first.

“So instead of trying to stop people from going somewhere, why don’t we give them some tools so when they go, they can help affect change? They can use their platform to affect change and not lose their livelihoods or something like that because ain’t nobody from the NAACP losing their livelihoods.

“Me at 42 years old, I know about those things, but if Mississippi State called me or Southern Miss, I’m going to go because financially I’ve got a family I’ve got to take care of.”