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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 13. Negro Strategy
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854 An American Dilemma
the power situation, that it is advantageous and, indeed, necessary to have
white allies in order to accomplish anything.
Leaving aside the interpretation of the history of concerted action for
Negro interests and facing the problem as a question of political strategy, it
will be apparent that both th^e interest in keepng as allies as many white
groufs as fossible and the interest in maintaining a high efectiveness in the
work being doney speak for having^ not one Negro organization^ but a
whole set of organizations specializing on dijjerent tasks and applying a dif-
ferent degree of opportunism or radicalism. This means that none of the
existing organizations should be criticized by applying the norm of an
imaginary unified Negro movement, which would be expected to do all
that the critics want done for the Negroes.
There is thus need for a militant organization like the N.A.A.C.P. to
uphold the great Abolitionist tradition, taking its stand on the American
Constitution and fighting for equality in justice and for suffrage, keeping
alive the unabridged ideals of the American Creed, but having enough
opportunism to take advantage of the possibilities of even minor improve-
ments within the segregated setup if that can be done without violating the
grand strategy aimed at exterminating segregation in the future. Such an
organization will always have its influential white adherents. There is also
need for a social service organization like the Urban League, doing its
work among the victims of caste, educating and protecting Negroes, and
exerting its pressure against the dominant white society from the welfare
point of view. In America there will always be white supporters for such
work, and they will be drawn from wider circles than the liberals of Aboli-
tionist traditions who will come out for the N.A.A.C.P. In addition, there
is in the South a pressing need for an interracial movement—indeed a need
for a much more efficient agency than the present Commission on Inter-
racial Cooperation—to exploit regional pride and the will to interracial
understanding among white Southerners. Everything churches and other
groups can do to increase the number of white people in the South and the
North who are willing to do something for Negroes is a clear gain for the
Negro cause.
There is little “overlapping” or “duplication” among the various existing
Negro organizations. In so far as there is duplication, it is useful. It means
that different white groups are being engaged for the same ultimate end
who could not agree as to the immediate ends. Another important observa-
tion is that there is actually little friction and rivalry among the three main
organizations. The N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League have been able,
most of the time, to work out both a division of responsibility and—^in
certain respects—a collaboration. Even in relation to the Interracial Com-
mission, there has been surprisingly little rivalry and destructive compe-
tition.
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