Allen H. Merriam, guest columnist: oplin to celebrate NAACP centennial

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October 3, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sat Oct 03, 2009, 08:36 AM CDT

This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the nation’s largest and most influential civil rights organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

From today’s vantage point, when an African-American family lives in the White House, it may be difficult to appreciate the dramatic change in racial realities over the past century. Theodore Roosevelt endured vitriolic attacks for daring to host Booker T. Washington at a White House dinner on Oct. 16, 1901. Much of this transformation is attributable to the NAACP.

The NAACP was born in an era of considerable racial tension. Between 1882 and 1900, 1,677 African-Americans were lynched, with 161 blacks lynched in 1892 alone.

The Supreme Court legalized segregation in Plessey v. Ferguson in 1896. A race riot in Wilmington, N.C., in 1898 killed between 20 and 100 African-Americans, while Atlanta’s 1906 riot left at least 12 blacks dead and more than 70 wounded.

Joplin had its own racial violence. On April 15, 1903, a black man, Thomas Gilyard, was lynched for allegedly killing Theo Leslie, a white police officer.

According to Gail Renner’s “Joplin,” homes were set ablaze and about 100 African-American families fled, including 1-year-old Langston Hughes, who later became an internationally famous poet and playwright.

Interestingly, most of the founders of the NAACP were white people, humanitarians appalled at the humiliation and violence perpetuated against African-Americans. In 1908, William English Walling, a labor reformer and graduate of the University of Chicago, published an article describing the brutality of the August riot in Springfield, Ill., which killed eight blacks, injured 70 and forced 2,000 African-Americans to flee the city.

The following January, Walling hosted a meeting in his New York City apartment attended by Mary White Ovington, a social worker, and Dr. Henry Moskowitz, a physician. They enlisted the German-born editor of the New York Evening Post, Oswald Garrison Villard, a Harvard graduate and grandson of the famous abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, to compose a “call” for a conference on the plight of the blacks.

The document — symbolically issued on Feb. 12, 1909, the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth — led to the formation of the NAACP. The “Call” was endorsed by more than 50 prominent citizens, including Jane Addams, John Dewey, William Dean Howells, Lincoln Steffins, the Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Ida Wells Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, and the presidents of Western Reserve University and Mount Holyoke College.

DuBois, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, became the founding editor of the NAACP’s monthly magazine “The Crisis.”

The NAACP grew rapidly, devoting itself to justice for all by combating lynchings and promoting voting rights and equal access to education and employment. Perhaps its most notable achievement was the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned Plessy and integrated public schools in the United States.

The Joplin chapter of the NAACP, active since 1943, promotes interracial understanding through guest speakers, cultural programs and dialogue with community officials. Current officers are Ruthie Cox, president; Jim West, vice president; Betty Martin, secretary; and Diana Fields-Colbert, treasurer.

The local celebration of the NAACP’s centennial will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, at the Continental Banquet Center, 2802 N. Range Line Road. Vocalist Ernestine Dilliard, of Oklahoma, will be featured. She has performed for three U.S. presidents and won the W.C. Handy Award.

The program will also include a proclamation by Joplin Mayor Gary Shaw, poetry readings, historical vignettes and an interpretive dance performance. Door prizes will be given. Tickets are $20 at the door and the public is invited.

Allen H. Merriam is a retired professor of communication at Missouri Southern State University.

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Allen H. Merriam, guest columnist: oplin to celebrate NAACP centennial

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