Whites and Blacks participated in the integration cause - I was one of them!

Founded on Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, campaigning for equal opportunity and conducting voter mobilization. 

A group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American answered the call. 

The results of the meeting became the NAACP. The NAACP's stated goal was to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. The NAACP established its national office in New York City in 1910 and named a board of directors as well as a president, Moorfield Storey, a white constitutional lawyer and former president of the American Bar Association. The only African American among the organization's executives, Du Bois was made director of publications and research and in 1910 established the official journal of the NAACP, The Crisis. 

Joel Spingarn, white/Jew one of the NAACP founders, was a professor of literature and formulated much of the strategy that led to the growth of the organization. He was elected board chairman of the NAACP in 1915 and served as president from 1929-1939. He is responsible for the expansion of NAACP offices across the U.S.

In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed a civil rights bill much stronger than J.F.K.’s.  Johnson’s civil rights bill required the government to stop funding for federal programs that allowed racial discrimination. It also called for the attorney general to file suits against school districts not integrating their schools. In August 1965 he signed the Voting Rights Act, which banned the various methods (literacy tests) that southern states had used to block African Americans from voting. President Johnson named the first black cabinet secretary and nominated the first black supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

When you read about civil rights from black historians you most likely will read things like, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. actions resulted in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”  Seldom do you find black’s giving whites any credit for them gaining their civil rights.  I simply do not believe Dr. King was the most important factor in the struggle for black advancement. I certainly do not believe he could accomplished what he did unless he had white men and women in the right positions to help. I also believe the country was ready to do away with segregation and if M.L.K had not stepped in someone else would. I think M.L.K was the right man for the time because he was not a radical like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Today blacks as a group still are not fully integrated into American life. Racial stereotypes persist. Hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan still exist, but DON’’T FORGET black racist groups exist like the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, etc.  There are as many prejudice blacks as there are whites. 

I do not think you can legislate race relations.  Race relations must be taught at home and any parent that is not teaching their children to be color blind are failing their children. My mothers best friend was black and when I sold our home to a nice black family she refused to ever speak to my mother again. This woman was a high school teacher. She told me, “If I wanted to live by ‘niggers’ I would have stayed in fifth ward.” Civil rights organizers say efforts to keep blacks from moving into white neighborhoods remain common. I do not believe that. I think that many blacks that move into white neighborhoods do not want other blacks in the community and I gave one example by sharing a personal experience I had with a nice, educated, upper middle class black lady.

The churches, black and white, have failed to do their part in race relationships. In Galveston, Texas there is a black minister association and a white minister association. The black ministers refused to merge with the white ministers. I always suspected they objected to sharing any power with white ministers or they did not want white ministers involved in their churches. Churches are the most segregated places in the United States.

I am not saying that whites have not prosper simply because they are white because we all know we have. But, those white and black that were willing to work together have brought about advancement in civil rights. My family in Alabama were staunch segregationist – I MARCHED WITH DR. KING IN SELMA, ALABAMA. It is not a black or white issue it is all about having a non-judgmental attitude and your parents teach you that at home. My parents taught me we are all equal white, black, Latino, Asian, rich, middle class, poor educated and uneducated. When you are taught not to judge others unless you have walked in their shoes it is easy not to be a racist.

In my opinion Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have hindered the civil rights movement not helped it. I honestly believe their goal was and is to keep a wall between the races. If they did not keep problems brewing between the races there would be no need for Jesse or Al. It is not true that Jesse Jackson was part of M.L.K.'s inner-circle. M.L.K. believed Jesse Jackson to be an agitator. Jesse Jackson tried to force his way into M.L.K.'s inner-circle.