The NAACP Dane County Branch will hold its annual Freedom Fund Dinner on Saturday, Oct. 11, at the Madison Concourse Hotel & Governor’s Club in downtown Madison, featuring keynote speaker Dane County Executive Melissa Agard.
The theme of this year’s dinner will be “The Fierce Urgency of Now.”
“The NAACP Dane County branch is so glad to host this year’s Freedom Fund Banquet under that theme ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now’ and what we want to do is make this an educational, informative and action-calling event,” NAACP Dane County Branch President Greg Jones tells Madison365. “I think the Freedom Fund Banquet for the Dane County branch this year is connected in scope, purpose and meaning with our national board’s direction.
“That theme was talked about quite a bit at our (NAACP) national convention. It was talked about by members from all over the country … its meaning, its purpose, and how it is rooted in Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream speech, essentially saying that we are at a point in time where the civil rights and social justice must be front and center in our political and social activities,” Jones says.
The keynote speaker this year will be Dane County Executive Melissa Agard, who will speak on the “The Fierce Urgency of Now” theme. United States Congressman Mark Pocan, a special guest for the event, will also speak.
“We can think of no other people who can bring about that theme as it impacts African Americans and people of color in Dane County than these two individuals,” Jones says.
The NAACP Dane County began hosting this event soon after its founding in 2014.
“But the difference this year is that we are faced with something different … we’ve never been here before. We have never been in this moment, in the presence of how actions are being taken,” Jones says. “This year, if the fierce urgency of now means anything, it means we can’t wait. It means that the call to action that I will put out at the dinner will be one that people can get behind.
“Hopefully it will connect and reach those individuals in that room that night, and then we want to carry it forward,” Jones adds. “This is a year that we think, following this particular Freedom Fund Banquet, we want to focus the branch on a few things.”
Jones says that the NAACP Dane County wants the Freedom Fund Banquet to focus on collaboration building in Dane County and reaching out to younger people, especially high school and college students. “We need to listen to our young folks and we need to let them lead,” Jones says. “We need to re-engage in making our young folks leaders of the future.”
The third thing Jones hopes to see coming from the Freedom Fund Banquet is a return to some of the formal activities that the Civil Rights Movement famously put in place. “We must now re-engage in marches, in rallies, in collective actions as different groups. We have to find old ways,” he says. “When you think about where we are now and where we need to go in Dane County, we have the capacity to do it. We just haven’t focused on it.
“While that’s a desire of mine, as president of the local NAACP, I’m hoping it can become an aspirational goal for the other organizations that are working very hard, like we are, to make change, whether it’s in health, education, welfare, wellness …. those organizations are doing great things,” Jones continues. “Let us sit down at the table and have what I would like to call a healthy round table discussion.”
The Freedom Fund Dinner is the primary fundraiser for the NAACP Dane County Branch. Jones says it will follow a lot of the same formula of past Freedom Fund events. The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a reception for community members to come in and have hors d’oeuvres and mingle before the dinner and program start at 7 p.m.
“We would love to see people this year come together at the reception, under this umbrella, the fierce urgency of now – and re-engage, reconnect, and recommit to each other and to themselves going forward,” Jones says.
“The actual program will have the singing of the Black National Anthem – Lift Every Voice and Sing. We’ll have an invocation and we will have reports from some of our committees,” Jones adds. “We will have some time where I recognize some of the important people at the event – individuals who play a prominent role in leadership in our community, whether they are in education, law enforcement or community advocacy. And then we will have our special speaker and our keynote.”
The Freedom Fund Banquet is organized by the NAACP Dane County Freedom Fund Committee, and everybody who buys a ticket to the event will receive a free membership to the NAACP.
“Everyone who purchases a ticket will have the option and opportunity to complete the membership application. We find that this is a great opportunity for a membership drive,” Jones says. “In fact, in the past, quite a few individuals who did attend will fill out those backsides of tickets. And of course, we’ll submit that information to the national [NAACP] and they become members by getting their membership cards from national.
“It’s going to be a fun night. We are looking forward to having a great event, and there are still some tickets available.”
For tickets to the 2025 NAACP Dane County Freedom Fund Dinner, click here.
