Giving Rye is a feature series highlighting non-profits and community groups in and around the City of Rye. Today meet James Henderson of the N.A.A.C.P. Port Chester-Rye Branch.
Your Name: James J. Henderson III
Name of your organization: N.A.A.C.P. Port Chester-Rye Branch
Your role: President
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission
Henderson: Our mission is to achieve equity, political rights and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination and accelerate the well-being, education and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.
How long have you operated in or around Rye?
Henderson: The NAACP Port Chester-Rye Branch, chartered in 1941 in response to the Joseph Spell case—which brought a young, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to our hometown—continues that legacy of advocacy, agitation and litigation. You’ll probably recall that powerful story as depicted in the 2017 film Marshall, starring the late, great Chadwick Boseman.
What programming or work is the organization best known for?
Henderson:
- Our annual Robert S. Brown and M. Paul Redd Memorial Freedom Fund Luncheon is our signature event. We hold it in Rye Brook and it is a wonderful afternoon of fellowship, fun and to get inspired. This year, we honored Scout Troop 400, Meals on Main Street, Joan Grangenois-Thomas, M Paul Redd Jr., Rye resident Ingraham Taylor and your city’s new City Council member, Marian Anderson and the Honorable County Legislator Nancy Barr. We featured the music of DJ Tony VIP, who set the tone perfectly. The positive energy in the room was palpable.
- We were so proud of the City of Rye and the MTA for their support of Rye Station Plaza being renamed in honor of longtime Rye residents, M Paul and Orial Redd. They were leaders in county and state-level politics and true champions of civil, equal and housing rights.
- We have delegates to attend the N.A.A.C.P. National Convention each summer. The 2025 event took place in Charlotte, NC. The 2026 National Convention is planned for Chicago.
Looking forward to 2026, what will be your top initiatives?
Henderson:
- We look forward to engaging more with the young people in our community. There are so many resources and ways for them to develop leadership skills and experience in whatever fields they aspire to operate in. For example, we recently had a wonderful meeting with the EMT, fire and first responders regarding opportunities for young people to get hands-on experience. We also hosted a screening of the Netflix documentary Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan, a Port Chester-native, at Port Chester Middle School (Friday, 11/7). Youth empowerment, for them to get inspired and take our organization, locally, to the next level.
- Doing our part to contribute to a shift in this nation’s conscience and moving toward a reckoning. We look forward to being better, doing better and that means with our event programming, the ways we engage and create coalitions with other local civic organizations and our counterparts throughout the County and State in the NAACP.
- We look forward to furthering our relationships with our esteemed partners, such as New York Presbyterian, who we partner with to produce a series of community healthcare and healthy lifestyle events throughout the calendar year.
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Henderson: We serve all people of goodwill, who believe in opportunity and equality for all. Our primary concern is agitate, advocate and litigate for the advancement of the people of color, who have built, contributed and been in this country for over 400 years and yet, face a myriad of systematic barriers in their path to achievement.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Henderson: Yes
Looking back across 2025, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Henderson:
- Relaunching our digital newsletter, which for now remains unnamed. We’ve been doing it quarterly and it serves as a tremendous resource in telling our story and reminding people and reinforcing our mission.
- In 2025 we re-instated consistent, in-person meetings. For now, they’re held quarterly – but they’ve served as a terrific opportunity for fellowship and team-building. We’ve been honored to work with our partners at HDSW Hope House, Meals on Main and The Carver Center, to achieve this.
- We did a number of amazing programs in Rye–including helping to clean up the African Cemetery, co-hosting The Right to Read at the Rye Reading Room, participating in the vernissage or Opening Reception for the French artist Fleur Spoliator’s Unforgiving Yardstick: A Look at Women’s Roles and Struggles in Westchester County, being honored by our partners at HDWS at their annual gala at The Coveleigh Club, and marching alongside the community in the Memorial Day Parade. We look forward to more activities in our home city of Rye, a place ripe with opportunity.
How can local residents support your organization?
Henderson: Support us by becoming members, participating, sharing the good news of the work we’re doing and to donate. We need to fund our righteous work. Membership has privileges. We are, as I like to say, the Crown Jewel of the NYS conference and we’re small but mighty, a historic branch that is just as vital to equality today, as it was in 1941.
What local Rye residents and area businesses have been the longest, steadiest supporters of your organization?
Henderson: Nancy Pasquale sits on our executive board and serves as our branch secretary. US Congressman George Latimer is a longtime member and active participant with our branch, as is County Legislator Nancy Barr, State Senator Shelley Mayer and NYS Assemblyman Steve Otis.
Tell us about you:
How long have you been in your current role?
Henderson: I have been in my current role since January 2025.
Is the role full time or part time? Paid or volunteer?
Henderson: It is a full time role – I do have a day job.
How would your friends and family describe you in one word?
Henderson: Tenacious.
Where did you grow up?
Henderson: Greenburgh, NY
What principles guide you when you have to make a difficult decision?
Henderson: Democracy, equality and freedom for all – what’s the greater good of humanity, good morals, character and goodwill. Collaboration and creating synergy, having a talented and reliable team, etc.
Can you share a time when failure taught you more than success ever could?
Henderson: Everyday we fail at something and look to fail forward and seek to learn from our misgivings and how to make the next go around better.
What excites you most about the future—for yourself or for the world?
Henderson: The reckoning, the idea that the greater good will always prevail. So, we look forward to a balance of the zaniness currently being spewed from the people’s house. The meek shall inherit the earth, the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
Where do you live and how many years have you lived there?
Henderson: I’ve lived in Downtown Port Chester for 21 years.
Thanks James!
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