Fights For Rights To Continue During War, Delegates Are Told Keynote Address at Los Angeles, p. 1
Dublin Core
Title
Fights For Rights To Continue During War, Delegates Are Told Keynote Address at Los Angeles, p. 1
Description
“Keynote Address at Los Angeles Repudiates “Wait-Until-After-The-War Philosophy and Pledges Double Effort For Victory At Home And Abroad
LOS ANGELES, Calif - So far as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is convernec, the fight for full and equal citizen rights for colored people will continue without let-up during the war.
This sentiment in the keynote address to the 33rd annual NAACP conference here July 14 was greeted with prolonged cheers and applause by 3,200 persons packed into Second Baptist Church. The speaker, Rev. Wilkins, assistant national secretary, striking out at those who would have the Negro be content with his lot and put aside protest until after the duration, declared:
“The reason why the NAACP was born in 1909, the reason it has lived for 33 years, the reason why these delegates are here tonight from nearly thirty states is because we are determined to be forever through with the status quo.”
Wilkins quoted the new famous statement of Mark F Ethridge, former chairman of FEPC, to the effect that no power in the world, “not even all the mechanized armies of the earth” can force the southern white people to abandon social segregation, and contrasted it with the statement of the late William English Walling in 1908, calling for treatment of the Negro “on a plane of absolute political and social equality.”
“These two white Kentuckians, one a founder of the NAACP, have laid down the issue for us,” said the speaker.
The NAACP keynoter declared Negroes cannot abandon the fight for their rights - all of them, because the predicament of the race forces action for redress of wrongs, because the tradition of the great pioneer fighters of the race drives present day Negroes to act, and because the struggle of the Negro is identical with the ideals and principles of the Declaration of Independence.
“This struggle is one with the war effort,” Wilkins asserted. “It is nonsense for anyone to say that this convention and this association are hindering our nation’s fight against the Axis Victory is vital to minorities, but as our President has said in his greeting to this convention, minorities are also vital to victory. The objectives we seek are not at variance with the war effort. These things that we feel in our hearts and these things that we yearn for, and these things that we are determined to fight to enjoy in spite of death itself - these are the things the war is about.”
Wilkins cited the lynching in in Texarkana, Texas, July 13 as a prime example of why the NAACP must carry on the fight until every protection is won for the race and every right secured.”
LOS ANGELES, Calif - So far as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is convernec, the fight for full and equal citizen rights for colored people will continue without let-up during the war.
This sentiment in the keynote address to the 33rd annual NAACP conference here July 14 was greeted with prolonged cheers and applause by 3,200 persons packed into Second Baptist Church. The speaker, Rev. Wilkins, assistant national secretary, striking out at those who would have the Negro be content with his lot and put aside protest until after the duration, declared:
“The reason why the NAACP was born in 1909, the reason it has lived for 33 years, the reason why these delegates are here tonight from nearly thirty states is because we are determined to be forever through with the status quo.”
Wilkins quoted the new famous statement of Mark F Ethridge, former chairman of FEPC, to the effect that no power in the world, “not even all the mechanized armies of the earth” can force the southern white people to abandon social segregation, and contrasted it with the statement of the late William English Walling in 1908, calling for treatment of the Negro “on a plane of absolute political and social equality.”
“These two white Kentuckians, one a founder of the NAACP, have laid down the issue for us,” said the speaker.
The NAACP keynoter declared Negroes cannot abandon the fight for their rights - all of them, because the predicament of the race forces action for redress of wrongs, because the tradition of the great pioneer fighters of the race drives present day Negroes to act, and because the struggle of the Negro is identical with the ideals and principles of the Declaration of Independence.
“This struggle is one with the war effort,” Wilkins asserted. “It is nonsense for anyone to say that this convention and this association are hindering our nation’s fight against the Axis Victory is vital to minorities, but as our President has said in his greeting to this convention, minorities are also vital to victory. The objectives we seek are not at variance with the war effort. These things that we feel in our hearts and these things that we yearn for, and these things that we are determined to fight to enjoy in spite of death itself - these are the things the war is about.”
Wilkins cited the lynching in in Texarkana, Texas, July 13 as a prime example of why the NAACP must carry on the fight until every protection is won for the race and every right secured.”
Creator
N/A
Publisher
Arkansas State Press
Date
1942-7-24
Collection
Citation
N/A, “Fights For Rights To Continue During War, Delegates Are Told Keynote Address at Los Angeles, p. 1,” African American Fourth of July, accessed April 29, 2024, https://africanamerican4th.omeka.net/items/show/22.