How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began, 1914 Reissued 1954

How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began By MARY WHITE OVINGTON NATIONAL AssociATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT oF CoLORED PEOPLE 20 WEST 40th STREET, NEW YORK 18, N. Y. MARY DUNLOP MACLEAN MEMORIAL FUND First Printing 1914 HOW THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE BEGAN By MARY WHITE OVINGTON (As Originally printed in 1914) HE National Association for the studying the status of the Negro in T Advancement of Colored People New York. I had investigated his hous is five years old-old enough, it is be ing conditions, his health, his oppor lieved, to have a history; and I, who tunities for work. I had spent many am perhaps its first member, have months in the South, and at the time been chosen as the person to recite it. of Mr. Walling's article, I was living As its work since 1910 has been set in a New York Negro tenement on a forth in its annual reports, I shall Negro street. And my investigations and make it my task to show how it came my surroundings led me to believe with into existence and to tell of its first the writer of the article that "the spirit months of work. of the abolitionists must be revived." In the summer of 1908, the country So I wrote to Mr. Walling, and after was shocked by the account of the race some time, for he was in the West, we riots at Springfield, Illinois. Here, in met in New York in-the first week of the home of Abraham Lincoln, a mob the year 1909. With us was Dr. Henry containing many of the town's "best Moskowitz, now prominent in the ad citizens," raged for two days, killed and ministration of John Purroy Mitchell, wounded scores of Negroes, and drove Mayor of New York. It was then that thousands from the city. Articles on the National Association for the Ad the subject appeared in newspapers and vancement of Colored People was born. magazines. Among them was one in the It was born in a little room of a Independent of September 3d, by Wil New York apartment. It is to be re liam English Walling, entitled "Race gretted that there are no minutes of War in the North." After describing the first meeting, for they would make the atrocities committed against the interesting if unparliamentary reading. colored people, Mr. Wailing declared: Mr. Walling had spent some years in "Either the spirit of the abolition Russia where his wife, working in the ists, of Lincoln and of Lovejoy must cause of the revolutionists, had suffered be revived and we must come to treat imprisonment; and he expressed his be the Negro on a plane of absolute po lief that the Negro was treated with litical and social equality, or Varda greater inhumanity in the United man and Tillman will soon have trans States than the Jew was treated in Rus ferred the race war to the North." And sia. As Mr. Walling is a Southerner we he ended with these words, "Yet who listened with conviction. I knew some realizes the seriousness of the situation, thing of the Negro's difficulty in se and what large and powerful body of curing decent employment in the North citizens is ready to come to their aid?" and of the insolent treatment awarded It so happened that one of Mr. Wal him at Northern hotels and restaurants, ling's readers accepted his question and and I voiced my protest. Dr. Mosko answered it. For four years I had been witz, with his broad knowledge of con- ---------- --- - --- J ditions among New York's helpless im gone in assuring to each and every citi migrants, aided us in properly inter zen, irrespective of color, the equality preting our facts. And so we talked of opportunity and equality before the and talked voicing our indignation. law, which underlie our American in Of course, we wanted to do some stitutions and are guaranteed by the thing at once that should move the Constitution? country. It was January. Why not "If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this choose Lincoln's birthday, February 12, country in the flesh, he would be dis to open our campaign? We decided, heartened and discouraged. He would therefore, that a wise, immediate ac learn that on January 1, 1909, Georgia tion would be the issuing on Lincoln's had rounded out a new confederacy birthday of a call for a national con by disfranchising the Negro, after the ference on the Negro question. At this manner of all the other Southern States. conference we might discover the be He would learn that the Supreme Court ginnings, at least, of that "large and of the United States, supposedly a bul powerful body of citizens" of which Mr. wark of American liberties, had refused Wailing had written. every opportunity to pass squarely upon And so the meeting adjourned. Some this disfranchisement of millions, by thing definite was determined upon, and laws avowedly discriminatory and open our next step was to call others into ly enforced in such manner that the our councils. We at once turned to white men may vote and black men Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, president be without a vote in their government; of the N. Y. Evening Post Company. he would discover, therefore, that taxa He received our suggestions with en tion without representation is the lot thusiasm, and aided us in securing the of millions of wealth-producing Ameri co-operation of able and representative can citizens, in whose hands rests the men and women. It was he who drafted economic progress and welfare of an the Lincoln's birthday call and helped entire section of the country. to give it wide publicity. I give the "He would learn that the Supreme Call in its entirety with the signatures Court, according to the official state since it expresses, I think, better than ment of one of its own judges in the anything else we have published, the Berea College case, has laid down the spirit of those who are active in the principle that if an individual State Association's cause. chooses, it may 'make it a crime for "The celebration of the Centennial white and colore<! persons to frequent of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, wide the same market place at the same time, spread and grateful as it may be, will or appear in an assemblage of citizens fail to justify itself if it takes no note convened to consider questions of a of and makes no recognition of the public or political nature in which all colored men and women for whom the citizens, without regard to race, are great Emancipator labored to assure equally interested.' freedom. Besides a day of rejoicing, "In many states Lincoln would find Lincoln's birthday in 1909 should be justice enforced, if at all, by judges one of taking stock of the nation's prog elected by one element in a community ress since 1865. to pass upon the liberties and lives of "How far has it lived up to the ob another. He would see the black men ligations imposed upon it by the Eman and women, for whose freedom a hun cipation Proclamation? How far has it dred thousand of soldiers gave their lives, set apart in trains, in which they lyn; Dr. John L. Elliott, New York; pay first-class fares for third-class ser W m. Lloyd Garrison, Boston; Rev. vice, and segregated in railway stations Francis J. Grimke, Washington, D. C.; and in places of entertainment; he William Dean Howells, New York; would observe that State after State de Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Chicago; Rev. clines to do its elementary duty in pre John Haynes Holmes, New York; Prof. paring the Negro through education Thomas C. Hall, New York; Hamilton for the best exercise of citizenship. Holt, New York; Florence Kelley, New "Added to this, the spread of law York; Rev. Frederick Lynch, New less attacks upon the Negro, North, York; Helen Marot, New York; John South, and West-even in the Spring E. Milholland, New York; Mary E. field made famous by Lincoln-often McDowell, Chicago; Prof. J. G. Mer accompanied by revolting brutalities, rill, Connecticut; Dr. Henry Mosko sparing neither sex nor age nor youth, witz, New York; Leonora O'Reilly, could but shock the author of the senti New York; Mary W. Ovington, New ment that 'government of the people, York; Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, by the people, for the people; should New York; Louis F. Post, Chicago; not perish from the earth.' Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, New York; "Silence under these conditions Dr. Jane Robbins, New York; Charles means tacit approval. The indifference Edward Russell, New York; Joseph of the North is already responsible for Smith, Boston; Anna Garlin Spencer, more than one assault upon democ New York; William M. Salter, Chi racy, and every such attack reacts as cago; J. G. Phelps Stokes, New York; unfavorably upon whites as upon Judge Wendell Stafford, Washington; blacks. Discrimination once permitted Helen Stokes, Boston; Lincoln Steffens, cannot be bridled; recent history in the Boston; President C. F. Thwing, West South shows that in forging chains for ern Reserve University; Prof. W. I. the Negroes the white voters are forg Thomas, Chicago; Oswald Garrison ing chains for themselves. 'A house di Villard, New York Evening Post; Rabbi vided against itself cannot stand'; this Stephen S. Wise, New York; Bishop government cannot exist half-slave and Alexander Walters, New York; Dr.

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