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Every January, when members of the Rhein-Neckar chapter of the NAACP put on their program to honor Martin Luther King Jr., they get a full house.
Hundreds of people — Germans, a Pan-African group from Heidelberg University and Americans from the base — gather at Providence Church on the city’s main street. They hear speeches about King’s legacy, listen to gospel choirs and eat free appetizers at the reception afterward.
That’s the last they’re heard from until the next year.
Few become members of the dwindling civil rights group. The Rhein-Neckar chapter of the venerable National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only one left in U.S. Army Europe, down from 21 chapters in years past.
As the U.S. military and the rest of America celebrate Black History Month, the national organization is struggling to keep its membership numbers up. The local Rhein-Neckar chapter is no different; there are perhaps 50 members or fewer, down from 100 or so in previous years.
“When we do our recruiting, people say, ‘We’ll come, we’ll come,’ ” said the group’s new president, Calvin Robinson, an Army civilian employee and Army Reserve major.
But they don’t.