Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: In the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) led a collation of labor, liberal and civil rights organizations in a national campaign to drive the Amos ‘n’ Andy television show off the air. The two year campaign was the culmination of a decade-long effort to eliminate negative comic stereotypes from mass media - an effort that brought black comedy and issues concerning black representation into the center of black political debate. This paper considers the centrality of these efforts to the modern civil rights movement. Historians of post-war black activism have tended to separate black cultural activism from the larger movement and have often limited discussion of the NAACP during the post-World War II period to the legal challenges to segregation that culminated in the Brown v. Board decision in 1954. Yet for the NAACP and many other black leaders, the goal of full political and social integration embodied in Brown could only be achieved by ridding American culture of comic stereotypes that portrayed blacks as shuffling buffoons. By highlighting the NAACP’s efforts in three campaigns – the Walter-White-led Hollywood campaigns in the early 1940s, the St. Louis Woman controversy in 1945 and the battle over Amos ‘n’ Andy in 1951-53 - this paper will propose new ways of considering black activism in the 20th century and advance our understanding of the relationship between politics and culture.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Despite the legislative victories of the civil rights movement, low-income African Americans have continued to face rising levels of poverty over the past three decades. Because of this ongoing
relationship between civil rights and economic justice, and despite disincentives, civil rights organizations have all, at times during
their history, chosen to advocate on behalf of low-income African
Americans. Therefore, this paper examines the factors that contributed
to organizations' decisions to advocate on behalf of politically
unpopular groups, such as welfare recipients. Welfare reform is not an
explicitly racial issue, but one that disproportionately affects
low-income African Americans. Depending on their incentives and
ideologies, organizations can choose to either emphasize the racial
significance of reform, or to substantially ignore the issue. In this
paper, I examine the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People's and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's activities concerning the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) in 1964 and 1965. A comparison of the incentives
responsible for this representation illustrates the importance of
internal organizational structure, growth, and inter-group competition to an organization's decision to prioritize anti-poverty policy and the representation of the poor.

Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: Alabama occupied a key role in the African American struggle for civil rights for most of the twentieth century. This paper examines the formidable, at times seemingly overwhelming, problems faced by civil rights activists in organizing and maintaining chapters of the NAACP in a Deep South state far removed from the national headquarters of the Association in New York. During the 1920s and 1930s the most important branches in the state were kept alive largely as a result of the courage and dedication of three individuals. Charles A. J. McPherson in Birmingham, John L. Le Flore in Mobile, and William G. Porter in Montgomery. Attention will be focused on the contribution of these pioneers of the civil rights movement.

The paper also looks at the sources of tension in the often strained relationship between NAACP branches in Alabama and the national office. Internal divisions in NAACP branches in Alabama during the late 1930s and early 1940s will also be explored as the Association not only sought to confront the problems of the Great Depression and World War but also saw existing branch leaderships challenged by younger activists with different experiences and backgrounds. Finally, there will be an assessment of the reasons why, despite such problems, the Association in Alabama experienced unprecedented growth during the war years, with Birmingham in particular becoming one of the largest and most important NAACP branches in the South by the mid 1940s.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: “The Fight is On: Juanita Jewel Craft and the Dallas NAACP Youth Council,” will analyze the activities and contributions of Juanita Jewel Craft to the civil rights struggle in Dallas, Texas by focusing on her work as Youth Council Advisor for the Dallas NAACP. Specifically, the paper will address Mrs. Craft’s leadership, mentorship and organizing activities in the desegregation of North Texas State College, desegregation of the State Fair of Texas and attack on fraudulent trade-school practices in black communities in Dallas. Craft’s work with the youth unit of Dallas’ NAACP branch became a prototype for other NAACP youth groups throughout the state and country. Her persistent activities against Jim Crow practices in Dallas also led to desegregation litigation and passages of legislation establishing rules for trade school operations within the community.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Prince Edward County, Virginia attained infamy in the early 1960?s as the only place in the nation to close its public schools for five years (1959-1964) rather than comply with a court order to desegregate. Historians often argue that the school desegregation campaign belongs to an earlier, more elite, less participatory phase of the movement for equal rights. Yet in Prince Edward County, the separate and unequal conditions at the black high school provided the fire through which the black community was refined into a political force, paving the way for a 1951 student walkout, the decision of the adult community to support the students, the involvement of the NAACP, and the filing of "Davis v. County School Board," which would go to the Supreme Court under the umbrella of "Brown v. Board of Education." The closing of the public schools in 1959 furthered the politicization that had begun in the school?s ?tar paper shacks,? ushering in another decade of litigation. But the 1960?s would also move the battle beyond the courts. The birth of the Prince Edward County Christian Association as an active grassroots force and the emergence of its president, the Rev. Leslie Francis Griffin, as one of Virginia?s leading civil rights figures; mass meetings; the development of an interracial discussion group; mass demonstrations and arrests; an economic boycott of Farmville merchants; and voter registration drives across the county all sprang from the taproot of the ?schools issue.? In Prince Edward, the campaign for school desegregation evidenced in NAACP-supported litigation and the direct action campaign evidenced in sit-ins, demonstrations and arrests were one and the same.