The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group representing more than 200 Black-owned media companies, signed a historic, strategic partnership with the NAACP during the NNPA’s Mid-Winter Conference in Las Vegas.

“Sometimes you have to take a step back and reconnect in order to move forward,” said NAACP Chairman Leon W. Russell. “Signing this agreement is taking that step back and it says it’s time for us to recommit to each other and work together to move our people forward.”

NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who once served as president of the NAACP, called the partnership historic.

“This [signing] consummates a working relationship of two of the world’s largest organizations focused on the empowerment of Black people,” said Chavis.

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, noted the groups’ histories.

“The NAACP would not be here, if not for William Monroe Trotter, a civil rights activist, newspaper editor and real estate businessman…the NAACP would not be here today, if not for Ida B. Wells, a newspaper writer…the NAACP would not be here today, if not for W.E.B. DuBois and his Crisis Magazine. I commit today, that we will be joining the NNPA,” Johnson said.