The board of the NAACP, the “nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization,” endorsed marriage equality at a meeting this afternoon. The move comes 10 days after President Obama announced his support of same-sex marriage.

The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes about gays and lesbians in the African American community are changing rapidly. A recent poll found that 54% of African Americans supported President Obama’s recent decision.

Maxim Thorne, formerly of the NAACP, broke the news over Twitter:

Since Obama’s announcement, numerous influential political figures — including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn — have joined him in supporting marriage equality.

The National Organization for Marriage continues to face fall-out over the confidential strategic memos released last week that reveal its intent to “fan hostilities” between marriage equality activists and African-American and Latino communities. Adding to a chorus of groups condemning NOM, the National Council of La Raza’a Vice President Eric Rodriguez said on Friday that the group’s tactics are “stunningly cynical” and rival those of the anti-immigration movement:

The cravenness on display from NOM is reminiscent of another bastion of intolerance, the anti-immigrant movement. They too have enough political savvy to realize that first, Latinos are an important demographic and voting block and second, that movements built on bigotry and intolerance are most successful when their shameful agenda stays hidden from the public. [...]

If NOM had stopped its indefatigable scheming for just a moment to learn something about our community, this diabolical plan would never have been hatched. First, not all Latinos are immigrants. Second, Latino immigrants welcome integration into American society. Third, Latinos are not foolish enough to believe that NOM has our best interests at heart. And, fourth, despite what NOM may think, the Latino community overwhelmingly supports LGBT equality. The Movement Advancement Project released research recently that showed that 74 percent of Latinos “support marriage or marriage-like legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.”

Following up on rebukes by the Julian Bond and Ben Jealous, leaders of the California conference of the NAACP defended the association’s support of marriage equality:

Some have been incensed that the NAACP support for same-sex marriage is equating the gay movement to our struggle for civil rights and racial equality. We disagree. The African-American struggle will forever stand as one of the greatest civil rights movements in modern history. After 400 hundred years of slavery, the achievements of some basic civil rights, 100 years of marching, protesting, court battles and violence that led to our freedoms and many gains in society is a wonderful legacy. As we continue the struggle for total equality in America, we must also fight for the total equality for others, whether it is another race or another group. Thus, the NAACP is the best organization to join the fight for equal protection for LGBT couples to help them overcome the same irrational arguments that were once used to justify slavery and the law of “separate but equal.”

While the memos were rife with evidence of NOM’s insidious agenda, its blatant manipulation of racial politics continues to stand out as the pinnacle of an agenda built not around “protecting marriage” but promoting anti-gay intolerance.

Ben Jealous speaking at the National Conference on LGBT Equality in January, 2012.

The National Organization for Marriage’s confidential memos released this week reveal the group’s insidious attempts to foster racial divisions to further its opposition to the freedom to marry. The leaders of various groups that advocate for African-Americans are now speaking out to condemn the exploitative tactics.

Adding to comments made by Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond earlier this week, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous rebuked any attempt at creating a wedge as “artificial”:

JEALOUS: This memo only reveals the limits of a cynical agenda. The truth is that no group, no matter how well-funded, can drive an artificial wedge between our communities. People of color understand what it is like to be the target of discrimination. No public relations strategy will make us forget that.

Sharon Lettman-Hicks, Executive Director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, also spoke out, expressing her concern that NOM has exploited the black faith community to advance a hateful agenda:

LETTMAN-HICKS: These documents expose NOM for what it really is—a hate group determined to use African American faith leaders as pawns to push their damaging agenda and as mouthpieces to amplify that hatred. NOM is fighting a losing battle. With these memos made public, the black faith community must refuse to be exploited and refuse to deny their fellow brothers and sisters equal protections under the law.

NOM President Brian Brown responded to the controversy this week by bragging, “We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors.” Clearly, that is not the case.

NAACP President Ben Jealous

While issues like marriage equality and nondiscrimination protections were certainly on the agenda at this weekend’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, keynote speakers highlighted conservatives’ efforts to obstruct the right to vote as one of the most pressing concerns for the LGBT community and its allies. In his address at the conference’s opening session Thursday night, NAACP president Ben Jealous emphasized that “our nation is in the midst of the greatest wave of voter suppression legislation since before the creation of the NAACP”:

JEALOUS: Supporters of voter suppression are responding to the growing diversity in this country, and the political power of this new population. They are afraid of the more inclusive America that the future holds.

And they know that coming after your right to vote is the first step to coming after so many of your other rights. That includes the right of workers to organize; the right of a woman to make decisions about her body; the right to walk down the street without fear of being harassed for papers; the right to stand alongside your loved one in his hospital room; the right to be yourself at work.

On Friday, Rea Carey, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, used her annual “State of the Movement” address to rally the LGBT community toward fighting the voter suppression efforts sweeping the nation. Calling voting an act of “resistance and insistence,” she urged the conference and movement at large to “occupy the vote”:

CAREY: Our opposition — those who do not believe in our full humanity or equality are on the attack. But, mobilizing the right-wing base to come out and vote on marriage isn’t actually their trump card anymore — it’s much deeper than that.

It’s the very ability to cast a vote. [...]

Having lost ground on LGBT and racial justice and equality over the last 40 years, and not having enough respect for our democracy to accept it, the right is now doing all it can to complicate the rules to register, get a ballot, vote early — you name it, they’ll do it, if it disenfranchises certain types of voters.

And so we are called to lead and to protect access to voting. This is in our self-interest and in the interest of our allies! We are people of color, we are students, we are transgender.

In 2012, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maine are already preparing for referendums on the issue of same-sex marriage, and Washington and New Jersey could join them. Conservatives are also attempting to use ballot initiatives to attack California’s law mandating that school curricula be LGBT-inclusive. The right of LGBT citizens and their allies to vote is crucial to advancing equality, and voter ID laws present a serious threat to that goal.