A homemade bomb went off near the building that housed both the Colorado Springs NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of Colored People) chapter and a local barbershop. According to the FBI, the explosive was detonated on Jan. 6, near a gas can that did not ignite.

 

The explosion caused no injuries, no major damages, and, oh, generated no major coverage either. Coverage of the explosion was scarce, so the reports of an NAACP bombing were shared and passed along on social networks. #NAACPBombing became a trending hashtag on Twitter. People shared their criticisms of mainstream media for ignoring the incident altogether.

 

Actress Rashida Jones pleaded on Twitter, “PLEASE, everyone, mainly national news outlets, CARE MORE ABOUT THIS, it’s barely getting any coverage.”

 

QuestLove, along with others, expressed his frustration: “wait…there was an #NAACPBombing for real? man…thank god for social media cause i woulda never known otherwise….oh well *shrug*….right?”

 

One can’t help but side with their frustrations. A homemade bomb conveniently explodes alongside a building that houses an NAACP chapter and a barbershop (whose customers are primarily black) and the media wants to ignore it? People have every right to be startled by this incident and to demand attention. The U.S. has a history of anti-black violence, and this is not the first time the NAACP has been targeted.

 

Huffington Post offers us a little history lesson in attacks against the NAACP: In August of 1966, the Milwaukee NAACP was bombed. In December of 1975, an NAACP Boston chapter was firebombed. In August of 1989, the NAACP Atlanta office had a tear gas bomb in their mail. In July of 1993, an NAACP chapter in Sacramento, Calif. was firebombed. Need I go on?

 

Our nation’s media outlets are supposed to be a reflection of what’s important to its people. Not having the media’s coverage is similar to someone saying, “Well, it’s just not that important.”

Explanations as to why media was slow to respond to the incident only added to people’s frustration. “No one was hurt and there aren’t any major property damages” is not an excuse to ignore an attempted bombing of a civil rights organization that has been attacked since its beginnings in 1909. Most media outlets focused on Charlie Hebdo and the terrorist attack in Paris, and it seemed like the world was suddenly concerned with ending the war on terrorism. What about the terrorism in our own backyards?

Though national news didn’t cover the story until a few days later, they probably wouldn’t have gotten far without Twitter and Facebook attention. National mainstream outlets failed to alert and cover the bombing of the Colorado Springs NAACP chapter. This illustrates the power of social networks and social media platforms to push topics and events to an important status, and to let unheard voices be heard.

Whether the bombing was a failure or a “success,” it was unacceptable to ignore this incident. This publication, in response, will not be ignoring the attempted bombing of one of our nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP.