Roy Wilkins: The Right To Dignity

If there is one thing I resolved from the courthouse burning, it was that never would I be like those in the mob. Never would I hate another human being so much that I would kill him and me. Even if it takes years longer, even if the highways are not always wide and smooth, I pray that I shall never crawl toward the promised land. On the belly of my spirit, the humanity common to all men transcends race, nationality, and color. [music] >> [music] [music] >> The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the largest civil rights organization in the United States. For the past 20 years, through the most turbulent times of the civil rights movement, the NAACP has been led by Roy Wilkins. Through dedication and courageous effort, Wilkins and the association have had a lasting impact on contemporary American history. The NAACP was founded in 1909, half a century after [music] the Civil War ended slavery as an institution. But most blacks were still victims of poverty, discrimination, and racial hatred. In many states, laws kept blacks from the housing, schools, [music] jobs, and voting rights that were available to whites. The association was founded on a daring notion that full integration of the races was a necessary and [music] desirable goal. Through the many years of hardship in the struggle for racial equality, the NAACP has maintained its dedication to the theory of integration. >> The NAACP is dedicated to the no discrimination between citizens of the United States. uh black and white and all in between. In the original call to form the NACP in 199, there was this phrase, "Recent history in the South shows that in forging chains for the Negroes, the white voters are forging chains for themselves." >> Roy Wilkins has been a steadfast and courageous part of that proud history. He has stood firm in times of vacasillation and has been a voice for calm. >> Clarence Mitchell, head of the NAACP's Washington office. No one has been closer to civil rights legislation over the past three decades. Sometimes called the 51st senator. He is a longtime friend of Roy Wilkins. I first uh met Roy Wilkins in the 1930s at which time there were many horrible things happening in the United States and there were not many people who were standing up and talking out against such things as lynching and various forms of segregation and discrimination. But Roy Wilkins was out there in front at that time as a newspaper editor in Kansas City, Missouri in the Kansas City call. He later joined the NAACP. But I would characterize him as a man of a great courage, a lot of common sense, and a sense of destiny in knowing that he wanted to go to a certain place. He wanted to bring his people to a certain place. and he seemed to have a sense of certainty about doing what he was setting out to do. >> Roy Wilkins [music] was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1901. His mother died when he was only 5 years old, and he and his brother and sister went to live with an aunt and uncle in St. Paul, Minnesota. He grew up in a community with only a handful of blacks. He attended mostly white public schools and spent his time [music] mostly with white friends. Wilkins was an excellent student and from early on his writing was [music] powerful and clear. When he went to the University of Minnesota in 1919, he joined the staff of the student daily newspaper. After graduating, Wilkins owned and edited a black newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri. He stayed there until he joined the staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored [music] People in 1931. Since then, he has had an influence on virtually every major step forward of the civil rights movement. In his leadership, he has avoided exaggeration and showmanship, but he has always been powerfully effective. [music] When Roy Wilkins joined the NAACP in 1931, it must be remembered that this was 2 years after the Great Depression had descended on this country. There was tremendous [music] unemployment among blacks, far far higher proportionately than among whites in the country. There was also a tendency to try to blame the blacks for various kinds of things that were happening. It wasn't necessary for an individual actually to commit [music] a crime. All he had to do is be suspected and he could be lynched. The theory was that you could maintain a special place for black people, a special place for white people. This would satisfy the Constitution of the United States. That was a spurious doctrine, but it had a great uh power in those days. For example, all of the public schools of the South and in some cities of the North were segregated on the basis of race. Roy Wilkins was a part of the team which was made up of Walter White who was then the secretary of the NACP. Roy Wilkins and Thood Marshall who is now a justice of the United States Supreme Court. It was their objective to try to eradicate these kinds of unjust things. In 1948, there was um a sharp u upward revision in the way black people felt that they would come out. uh nothing hopeful but uh an improvement over what had been the post-war period uh left us with a lot of unemployment in this country. It left us with returning uh military people who had been off fighting a war for democracy. And it was very clear that those who had been fighting for human justice around the world were in no mood to come back to their own country and find such things as segregation based on race. It was then that the NAACP, which had been following a program of attacking segregation on a kind of peacemeal basis, decided that there had to be a frontal attack on the so-called separate but equal doctrine. with everyone. [music and singing] >> It would take a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court to overturn the laws that kept black children separate from white children in schools. Roy Wilkins worked with Thood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers to devise a strategy for a Supreme Court test. They enlisted expert witnesses who testified about the psychological and social harm of segregation to black children. They argued that racial segregation in the schools violated the United States Constitution. On May 17, 1954, the court handed down a momentous decision. In the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. The NAACP had been instrumental in winning the most significant civil rights victory since the end of slavery. as far as the impact of um the decision uh Brown versus uh Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas had. It simply meant that the system under which thousands and thousands of Negroes had been educated uh prior to that time was uh dumped out the window. And there was there could no law be passed that uh my children could go to this school and if I were white they could go to that school. >> The 1954 decision spurred the NAACP and other activist groups to challenge segregation in housing, transportation, and public facilities. Marches and sitins led to the arrest of many demonstrators. Roy Wilkins became executive director of the NAACP in 1955, and it was clear that there was much work yet to do to gain true equality. Not only the laws, but the attitudes and traditions of segregation had to be overcome. When Roy Wilkins assumed the leadership of the NAACP, the full impact of the Supreme Court school desegregation decision was felt. Unfortunately, there were many people, high government officials in the states who mobilized a virtual arsenal of uh types of frustration to try to prevent that decision from being implemented. We had the scene of a governor of [music] one state, the governor of the state of Arkansas, using the armed forces of that state to prevent black children from going to public school. Roy Wilkins at the helm of the NAACP had to meet and deal with all of those problems. And the story was getting across to America and to the world that the negro was a human being, was an American citizen presumably possessing inalienable rights which were being grievously and bestly violated that the proud and free America could hardly hold its head high enough to escape the stench. Did we have courts? And to what end? Did we have a constitution? For whom? What of our vaunted slogan equal justice under law? In the period of the 60s, uh there was a great awareness on the part of blacks that by using their political power, they could elect officials to public office who would be sympathetic to their cause. Uh this uh resulted in enormous participation in presidential and local elections by blacks and it also brought into the white house a man who had the reputation of being very concerned about human rights and individuals. That of course was President John Kennedy. Around that type of thing, there grew a belief that something dramatic had to be done to spark up the actions that were already underway in the Congress to try to get certain kinds of legislation passed. It was a Philip Randolph, one of the elder statesmen among the blacks, Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and others from the religious community from Labour and other places who got together and hit upon the idea of having what was called a march to Washington. In 1963, the NAACP helped organize and staff history's largest protest against inequality. A quarter million people, black and white, came to Washington to tell the American Congress that it must pass laws prohibiting discrimination against blacks. We felt that uh it was going to be a flop and uh we were afraid that it was going to be uh you know how people are they uh but we went ahead and uh came out. We we came out about noon and the people were flocking down there. [music] [singing] >> The March on Washington went far beyond everyone's hopes and it offered a forum for one of the most eloquent speeches the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King ever made. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. FREE AT LAST. FREE AT LAST. THANK GOD ALMIGHTY. WE ARE FREE AT LAST. I don't think anybody will ever recover the feeling that the universal feeling that came out of the march on Washington. The March on Washington in 1963 led eventually to the passage of many laws breaking down segregation and inequality in employment, voting, and housing. >> In the 1960s, it was important to have a framework in which to operate. Roy Wilkins supplied that framework. I believe it was a very simple one. He pointed out that the Constitution of the United States sanctioned the use of activity such as picketing and such as demonstrations. He pointed out that the people had a right to petition their government for redress. He also pointed out that there were times when you had to have direct confrontation in order to challenge injustice. These were principles that the NAACP had always espoused and had used successfully in challenging a lot of injustices. But now it had to be done on a monumental scale throughout the country. [singing] >> It was the NAACP lawyers who went to court to protect the rights of demonstrators. The NAACP often paid bail money and fines for those who were arrested and jailed in civil rights demonstrations. and NAACP members fill the ranks of marchers and demonstrators. Roy Wilkins traveled to Jackson, Mississippi in 1963 to join Medga Evers, a field secretary of the NAACP. Evers was organizing a protest against stores refusing to hire blacks. 12 days later, an assassin killed Megar Evans. I went down with Medgar Evers to protest the denial of employment by Woolworth stores. It was only 12 days before he was slated to go. Uh he gave me a uh modus operandi for dealing with the with white folks. Uh he said uh now this there's uh policemen on this corner and there's policemen in the rear and the thing to do is not to be any different than the people on the street. Uh therefore you must conceal the signs. Roy Wilkins was arrested that day in Jackson. His philosophy of leadership stressed responsible nonviolent action and within the framework of the Constitution, confrontation could be justified. [music] After 20 years of active leadership of the NAACP, Roy Wilkins retired. his successor, lawyer, banker, minister Benjamin L. Hooks. >> The NAACP will not go into eclipse because Mr. Wilkins has resigned. In fact, he's still contributing his talents and time as director emeritus and I look on look to him for advice and some comfort in these difficult days. And when Ben Hooks leaves NAACP will not die because it is an organization of 1,700 chapters, almost 500,000 dues paying members and a spiritual kind of kinship that's very difficult to define. Roy Wilkins has had a lifelong dream to see the burden of segregation and inequality lifted from his people and his country. We will work harder to secure our rights to decent education, [music] jobs, and equal protection of the laws. Let us use every tool at our disposal, every hand on deck, black and white, young and old. There is unfinished business for us to take care of. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> I will be shar.