Word: naacp
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this reason, the only effective approach to the integration problem seems to be a pragmatic one. Neither a flabby gradualism nor the use of federal troops can achieve a humane and realistic answer to this emotion-charged issue. Instead, the NAACP should move as fast as it can--as fast as particular local conditions will allow. Gradualism, which has become the off-the-hook byword in a presidential campaign, must not assume that because resistance is strong in some areas and the process will be slow, the integration everywhere in the South should not be rushed...
...past, the NAACP has often moved in areas where maximum resistance could be expected: in the Mississippi delta area, for instance, where the Negro sometimes outnumbers the white and where feudal relationships are strongest. In the future, however, the NAACP should confine actual integration cases either to major Southern cities--such as Atlanta, Birmingham, and Jackson--where indications are that natural development has brought the races to a point where integration is possible, or to areas where the Negro population is negligible--such as the Mississippi Gulf Coast...
While the NAACP goes forward as quickly as it can, responsible Southern leaders must be enlisted on their side, without the false maintenance of disclaimers of radicalism that are really the well-springs of inaction. It is, admittedly, not easy to make definite progress in some areas at present; neither, is it sound to criticize Citizens Councils and leave things at that. Southern leaders must stop equating the Councils with the NAACP, for they are really unequal groups. It is time to stop talking about integration in progressive terms while attending a convention up North and then keeping silent back...
President Eisenhower at his recent press conference once again pleaded for moderation and responsible leadership on the integration issue in the South. To the non-extreme Southerner, wedged uncomfortably between the racism of White Citizen's Councils and the militancy of the NAACP, the words were doubtless encouraging. But with little support in the South itself, the moderate is finding it increasingly hard to subsist on the compliment-a-week strategy of the President...
...behooves us now to stop, and examine our prospect. The Citizens Councils want the NAACP outlawed; the NAACP wants the Citizens Councils outlawed. You cannot demand more than you can give. Your aims should be to reconciliate men, not to widen gulfs of human hatred," he counseled...