Lifting every voice

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“I’M LOOKING AT the statistics, I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’ ” Natascha Saunders, a career coach who chairs the NAACP branch’s labor and industry committee, sounded exasperated. She had been studying how salary rates compare in different parts of Boston. She was shocked at the data, she said at a recent NAACP membership meeting. People who work in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan make significantly less than their counterparts in similar jobs downtown, Curry told the crowd. “Mm-hm,” came the response. No one sounded surprised.

To develop their game plan, Curry, Saunders, and the rest of the leadership team are poring over reports, consulting community leaders, and meeting with Mayor Thomas Menino, school Superintendent Carol Johnson, and other key figures. Branch leaders will have a trove of data to draw on this summer, when the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, with the Boston NAACP and the Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, releases the first-ever State of Black Boston report on how minority residents fare in health, education, and other areas.

The draft findings show stark disparities – nonwhite residents, who have made up a majority in Boston since 2000, have a higher infant mortality rate than whites, are more likely to drop out of school, are at higher risk of dying from heart disease, are disproportionately represented in prisons, and are twice as likely to have their mortgage applications rejected, even when compared with whites who make the same income. The list goes on. “For anyone who thinks we don’t need an NAACP anymore, this should show you why,” Curry said at a recent meeting of the branch’s executive board. “I don’t want to walk in a meeting and say, ‘Help black people.’ I want to say, ‘Here’s the history, and here’s the data.’”