THE CRISIS AN INSPIRING GIFT Founded 1910 REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. FOR .A YOUNG A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES Editor: James W. Ivy Editorial Advisory Board: Lewis S. Gannett, Arthur B. Spingarn, AMERICAN Sterling A. Brown, Carl Murphy Vol. 65, No. 5 Whole Number 553 A JUNIO R LIFE MEMBERSHIP IN THIS ISSUE Ma y, 1958 COVER IN THE NAACP available to boys Mrs. Lorenza Tucker, who graduated from the Music and Arts High School in New York City and then received her B. A. and M. A. in musicology from Hunter College, now teaches in public school No. 103 and . girls 12 years old and younger in Manhattan. Mrs. Tucker, who lives in Jamaica, is a member of the Amato Opera Company and plans to become a concert singer.-Cecil Layne Photo. The love of freedom and brotherhood grow easily in a COMME T 0 FRA K LEE'S ARTICLE-By John A. Morsel/ .. 261 child's heart ... when it is carefully nurtured and en­ 1 E COURAGEOUS STUDE TS-By Clarence A. Laws ......... 267 couraged. A Junior Life Membership in the NAACP will URBAN EGRO AND URBA JEW- By Dennis Clark 275 be invaluable in developing any child's awareness and respo nsibility in the struggle for human rights. Junior DEPARTMEN TS Life Memberships cost but $100. A meaningful and LOOK! G AND LISTENING ........................................................................ 290 impressive gift for your child, grandchild, godchild, ALONG THE NAACP BATTLEFRONT ..................... ........ ........... .. ............ 300 stepchild, niece, nephew .. any youngster you love. BRANCH NEWS .................................... ................... ................. .. ............. ... ..... 303 COLLEGE AND SCHOOL NEWS ............. .... .. ... .. ............. ... .. ............. ........... 310 I WISH TO ENROLL THIS CHIL D AS A LI FE MEMBER BOOK REVLEWS ............................ .................................. ................ .. ............... 314 OF NAACP. 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Manuscripts and drawings My Nome ........................... re/atin_g to colored people are desired. Tirey must be accompanied by retum postage, and while Tna CRJSIS uses every care, it assu,.es tro responsibility for their safety in transit. Ree11tered My Address ............... as secOtrd class matter July 22, 1949, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of ·--·---.,..--·- March 3, 1879. City and Stole ........ .. The contents of TuE Carsrs are copyrighted. Copyright 1958 by Tire Crisis Publishing ---·-··.. · ·---·-· Co•upqny, Inc. All rights reserved. 113 MAY, 1958 259 • The author exposes the inaccuracies and fallacies in Mr. lee's article, which appeared in the April Crisi• Comment on Frank F. Lee's "Changing Structure of Negro Leadership" By John A . Morse-11 HE article "Changing Struc­ eluding that portion of it furnished ture of Negro Leadership," by by the NAACP, may not be legiti­ T Frank F. Lee, which appeared mate object of informed criticism. in the April Crisis, calls for more ex­ In its essentials, Lee's thesis is that tended comment than it could com­ the traditional leadership elements of mand purely on its merits. It is a the Negro community (typically curious hodgepodge of inaccuracies, clergymen and teachers) are losing omissions, and logical distortions, their predominant influence, or are and ordinarily one would be content at least being forced to share it with simply to say so, citing perhaps one other elements. In view of the de­ or two of the more flagrant samples. monstrable evidence of change in re­ But the article was published in the lated aspects of community structure, official organ of the NAACP, and in resulting in part from expanded op­ such a way as to make it quite pos­ portunity and broader political aware­ sible for readers to assume that it ness, the likelihood of change in lead­ represented in some measure the ership patterns can readil y be con­ views of the Association. Since the ceded. The qu arrel is with Lee's article doe not, by any stretch of the conclusions as to why this is so, with imagination, reflect NAACP assess­ what be regards as supporting evi­ ment of its leadership needs, this dence, and with the implications he JUDGE CARL R. JOHNSON, president of the Kansas City, Missouri, branch, must be made plain, together with the draws therefrom. presents an NAACP life membership plaque to Dr. John W. Williams (R), pastor reasons. To say this obviously does Among these implications. he bears of St. Stephen Baptist church in Kansas City, at a morning service in the church. not mean that Negro leadership, in- down hardest on a re-hash of the More than 2,000 members of Rev. William's congregation witnessed the event in what is believed to be the largest Baptist church in this area. St. Stephen has timeworn charge that the "bourgeois" more than 4,000 members. DR. JOHN A. MORSELL is assistant to character of NAACP leadership un­ the executive secretary of the NAACP. fit s it for a role at the head of the 260 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 261 resurgent "masses." He undertakes to ing the word in quotes. Mrs. Parks IIOYCOn AND COMMUNITY STRUCTURE tion by the NAACP keeps protest prove this by a discussion of the is admittedly not aggressive in ap­ The fact is that the boycott fitted alive. NAACP's activity in two well-known pearance or demeanor, but she was into and was both conditioned and Nevertheless, under direct stimula­ anti-segregation efforts: Clarendon the secretary of the NAACP branch abetted by the organizational struc­ tion from national headquarters, County, S. C., and Montgomery, in Montgomery and was known as a ture of the Montgomery Negro com­ NAACP branchc~ throughout the Alabama. person of independent mind and firm munity: most notably its churches, country, alone a1ad in concert with The pertinence of either compari­ principles. but also its social and business group­ others, raised thousands of dollars son or contrast betwen the school I do not know whether Lee made ings. All these elements combined to for the support of the protest. On segregation case in Clarendon Coun­ personal inquiries on the spot, but produce what was one of the most June 1, 1956, halfway through the ty and the bus boycott in Montgom­ his air of intimate familiarity with effective aspects of the boycott: the boycott, the NAACP was placed un­ ery is not clear. Both were attempts the inner motivations of the leading collaborative and resilient network der a rigid injunction by the Ala­ to eliminate some aspect of racial figures in these events wou ld be jus­ which operated the car-pool in so bama courts, and was forbidden to injustice, but 1they otherwise bad in tifiable only on that basis, if at all. successful a fashion. Inded, it might engage in any ktnd of activity what­ common only the fact that each In any case, it is thoroughly inac­ also be stipulated that such move­ soever in that State. This order was sought initially to improve on seg­ curate to allege that "in the early ments are destined to fail precisely scrupulously obse:rved from the day regation and subsequently became an days of the boycott leadership arose where these basic structural ingredi­ it was handed down, although it has attack on seg:regation itself. Lee's outside the traditional power struc­ ents are lacking. been attacked in the United States Supreme Court, which has sWl to analysis of th'e two situations does ture of the Negro community." Lee No evidence is offered for the flat is here speaking chiefly of E. D. rule at this writing. The order did nothing to make the juxtaposition assertions that ( 1) "there was little more understandable. Nixon, to whom he insists on refer­ not apply to the NAACP Legal De­ communication or cooperation be­ fense and Educational Fund, Inc., ring mysteriously as "the union or­ tween the NAACP and Montgomery ganizer." through whose r,esources the litiga­ MONTGCIMERY SITUATION Negroes," and that (2) "this was be­ But Nixon, leader in Alabama of tion was conductc~d which finally re­ cause of the organization's unwilling­ In the Montgomery situation, there the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters, sulted in the ending of bus segrega­ ness to participate in boycott-type is no question of the widespread and had also been president of the State tion as a violation of the Fourteenth situations out of fear of white retalia­ intense readim:ss of the Negro com­ Conference of NAACP branches. He Amendment. tion." But then, no evidence could munity for a protest against intoler­ had a lifelong record of activity with­ be given, since neither statement is CLARENDON COUNTY CASE able conditions on the city's buses. in the organizational structure of the true. These conditions were notoriously Negro community and had run for Lee's discussion of Clarendon distasteful and onerous, and had pro­ public office. By no stretch of the The original demand of the boy­ County is no more satisfactory than duced a lengthy series of unpleasant imagination could he then or now be cotters was for modification of the was the case with Montgomery.