James E. Harris, the disgraced former Montclair NAACP president who was forced out of multiple leadership roles after a 2020 anti-Semitic tirade, is attempting a comeback—this time by targeting the head of the New Jersey NAACP.
Harris, now 78, sparked outrage five years ago when he accused the Jewish community in Lakewood of “controlling” the town at the expense of Black and Latino students. In his diatribe, delivered at a Montclair community forum, he described Orthodox Jews as “folks in long black suits and curly locks” who were buying up properties and “victimizing people of color” in both Lakewood and Jersey City.
Gov. Phil Murphy demanded Harris resign from his post on the state’s Education Opportunity Fund. Freshman Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo both denounced his remarks. The Montclair NAACP stripped Harris of leadership responsibilities and suspended him for six months.
Five years later, Harris has reemerged with a vendetta. His new target is Richard T. Smith, president of the New Jersey NAACP. But questions swirl over whether Harris, a figure publicly disgraced for bigotry, has any credibility left in mounting such an attack.
Smith, meanwhile, has a record of swiftly confronting prejudice inside the organization. In 2020, when evidence surfaced that Jeffrey Dye, the Passaic NAACP president, had posted anti-Semitic and anti-Latino rants on Facebook, Smith acted immediately. Dye was ousted, and Murphy fired him from his state job at the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.