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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 4. The National Negro Congress Movement - 5. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
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Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 819
failed to catch the imagination of the young Negro of the South. Its program has
been diffuse and recently, at least, seems to take its cue in the major essentials from
the “line” laid down by the American Communist Party. . . . Moreover, no serious
effort has been made to reach the lower class Negro youth of the South who arc in
dire need of guidance and encouragement. In its present form the Negro Youth
Congress is run by and for a select group of Negro school boys and girls who are
themselves terribly confused and often frustrated. It can contribute but little toward
the progressive development of the Negro.^®
This might be true enough, yet it should be recalled that any organization,
even if its immediate accomplishments are small, represents a coming
together of Negroes for concerted action, which gives training and vision.
5. The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peofle is
without question the most important agency for the Negroes in their
struggle against caste. At several points in our inquiry, we have seen how
it functions. It is an interracial movement. As a matter of fact, it was
started on white people’s initiative. In the summer of 1908 there had
occurred a severe race riot in Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham
Lincoln. Scores of Negroes had been killed or wounded and many had
been driven out of the city. Wide publicity was given the affair in the press
and one writer, William English Walling, threw a challenge to the nation:
there was a need for a revival of the spirit of the Abolitionists to win
liberty and justice for the Negro in America. The appeal was answered
by Mary White Ovington. In January, 1909, Miss Ovington met with Mr.
Walling and Dr. Henry Moskowitz in New York, and the plans were laid
for the organization that was to become the N.A.A.C.P. Of these three,
Miss Ovington is still active on the board of the N.A.A.C.P.®
Oswald Garrison Villard was asked to draft a call for a conference on
February 12, 1909, the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s
birth. Signed by many prominent white and Negro liberals, the document
pointed in ringing phrases to the injustices inflicted upon the Negro against
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, and called upon
... all believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of
present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and
political liberty.^^
• Mary White Ovington, Ho<w the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
Peofle Began (1914), cited by Bunche, of, cit,y Vol. 1, p. 24. The following account of
the N.A.A.C,P. has drawn heavily from Bunche’s memorandum, compared with critical
comments and information given by Walter White, the Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., and
Roy Wilkins, the Assistant Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. and Editor of The Crisis, See
also Paul E, Baker, Negro-White Adjustment (1914), pp. 43 ff.
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