By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
With her background, passion for justice, and vision for a more inclusive Greater Sacramento NAACP, Tijuana Barnes is poised to lead it into a new era of advocacy and empowerment.
Barnes was sworn in as president of the organization Jan. 2 at the Robbie Waters Library.
Barnes, 41, was sworn in with 13 others as officers or committee chairs, among them Lamills Garrett as vice president and attorney Justin Ward as legal redress chair.
Barnes, an attorney from Washington D.C., moved to Sacramento in 2018 with her adopted daughter after graduating from the University of the District of Columbia Law School. She spoke with The OBSERVER about her upbringing in a predominantly Black city and her involvement with the NAACP only three weeks after moving to Sacramento.
Barnes emphasized the importance of community involvement and data collection to address the needs of Black families, particularly in education and the foster care system. Her commitment to civil rights and racial justice is driven by her upbringing and experiences. Barnes grew up in Washington D.C. during the time when civil rights leader Marion Barry was mayor throughout the 1980s and ’90s. She says that while growing up, she didn’t notice that her school and neighborhood was segregated.
“My high school was the first college preparatory high school for Black people in this country,” she says. “When I went, it was 99% Black, and so all of my experience has been that a lot of people could call it a paradise or a utopia, but in American terminology, it was segregated. When you live in it, and you don’t know, you don’t think about it until you realize you didn’t have many friends of different races.”
Barnes, with her East Coast accent making daughter sound like “daughta” or lawyer sound like “lawya,” emerged from a poor but caring home.
“Although it was not a wealthy family, my family loved me, and if at any point I failed, I knew I had somewhere to go. I knew that they would take me back in until I got back on my feet,” Barnes says. “Not everybody has that. Even living paycheck to paycheck, they are not about to have me on the street, I was able to then advocate for them and others because I did have that safety net to know that my mom would take me back in or, you know, my grandma would take me back in.”
Barnes’ parents were distrustful of politicians and systems that harmed Black people. They inculcated her with their passion for justice and equality. “I’ve always been into civil rights,” she says. “I didn’t grow up saying I wanted to be an advocate for kids. … It’s just something I was destined to do. I didn’t seek it out. It was just something that I felt within me.”
Before becoming an attorney, Barnes was a special needs educator working with students who had down syndrome, autism, and learning disabilities such as dyslexia or bipolar disorder.
If that wasn’t enough, Barnes then decided to care for a foster child whom she would eventually adopt, her now 22-year-old daughter Gabriella Barnes, who gave a brief history of the branch at the swearing-in.
Always having a love for California, Barnes and her daughter packed up and headed for Rocklin in 2018. She said she was in culture shock upon seeing so few Black people. “I was like, where are the Black people in California?” Barnes says.
She got involved with the Sacramento NAACP branch within three weeks of moving here.
“I immediately reached out to the NAACP. Immediately. It took me no time to be on the executive committee,” Barnes says. “I literally made a little scene at the meeting because I said, ‘I’m trying to get involved. I need somebody to answer my question so I can get involved.’ And all of a sudden, boom, I was not only involved, I was with the executive committee.”
The Greater Sacramento NAACP has a rich history of leadership dedicated to civil rights and community advocacy. Former President Betty Williams stands out as the longest-serving president in the branch’s history, leading from 2005 to 2012 and again from 2017-2023. Williams consistently spoke out against police brutality, aligning the Greater Sacramento NAACP with national calls for justice in cases involving excessive force. She was visible at protests and public events addressing police violence, especially following the police killing of Stephon Clark in 2018.
However, in October 2023, Williams and five other officials were suspended following allegations of financial mismanagement. The national NAACP initiated the action after concerns arose regarding the handling of funds from a county-sponsored food delivery program that operated from March 2022 to June 2023.
In January 2024, two of the suspended members were reinstated after being cleared of wrongdoing. Williams and three others, however, remain suspended pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation.
Nonetheless, Barnes says Williams has been a mentor in her becoming president, encouraging Barnes to take on more positions of responsibility.
“I didn’t see it in me but she saw it in me,” Barnes says of Williams.
Barnes, who says she envisions giving the organization back to the community, also plans to conduct NAACP meetings in neighborhoods throughout Sacramento.
“Usually – I’ve seen it, not just with NAACP – there’s a core group of people that’s doing all the work and the community really, they really don’t know who’s doing the work. They have no say. They don’t have any voice in what goes on. And so l want to be more available as a committee, not as an individual,” she says. “I don’t want the organization to be Tijuana; I want the organization to be the NAACP in that there are several members that our community can rely on to give them the help that they need. I want to listen to their needs again.”
Barnes also plans to recruit more senior citizens to volunteer, particularly as education advocates.
“What I would like to see is if I can connect with another organization to recruit volunteers and educate them on how to be education advocates. So when our families have issues with their children’s Individual Education Program (a plan to help special needs students get the help they need), they can have someone,” she says. “They can sign up for one of our volunteers to go in there with them, to help them and walk, you know, hold their hand through the process, so they won’t feel like they’re going alone.”
Barnes also envisions long-range data collection around issues such as the disproportionate impact of the foster care system on Black families.
Barnes’ ascension comes at a time of heightened concern about racial discrimination, especially in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s re-election. “We want our community to know that if they face racial discrimination, we are here for them,” Barnes says. “Our doors are always open. File a complaint, send an email, and we’ll support you.”
Barnes says the best way to reach out is not by phone but by filing a complaint or sending an email. But she wanted it clear that everyone who works at the NAACP is a volunteer with their own lives to navigate.
“We want to be as available as possible, but it’s not going to be as easy as it is to call down to, you know, maybe a governmental building with hundreds of workers. I want people to know that we’re here.”
Barnes is honored to have been chosen by the community and doesn’t take the job lightly.
“I’ve been in the community for not as long as a lot of other people, but they are able to see my work that means something to me, and I’m very grateful to them for that. That’s number one for me,” she says. “Like I said, I look at long range goals, so what I want for my presidency is to know how much of an impact I made on the community. I don’t want to just point to individual cases, but I want to make statements like my presidency, did X, Y and Z for our community.”
The Greater Sacramento NAACP has general body meetings at 10 a.m. every second Saturday. To participate, email secnaacp1060@gmail.com.