Roy Wilkins
Roy Wilkins | |
---|---|
Walter Francis White | |
Succeeded by | Benjamin Hooks (Executive Director) |
Personal details | |
Born | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. | August 31, 1901
Died | September 8, 1981 (aged 80) New York City, New York, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse |
Minnie Badeau (m. 1929) |
Relatives | Roger Wilkins (nephew) |
Education | University of Minnesota (BA) |
Awards | Spingarn Medal |
Roy Ottoway Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was an American civil rights leader from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Early life
Wilkins was born in
In 1929, he married
Early career
While attending college, Wilkins worked as a
in 1923..His confrontation of the Jim Crow Laws led to his activist work, and in 1931 he moved to New York City as assistant NAACP secretary under
He served as an adviser to the War Department during World War II.
In 1950, Wilkins—along with
NAACP leadership
In 1955, Wilkins was chosen to be the executive secretary of the NAACP and in 1964, he became its executive director. He had developed an excellent reputation as a spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement. One of his first actions was to provide support to civil rights activists in
Wilkins backed a proposal suggested by
He believed in achieving reform by legislative means, testified before many
On issues of segregation, as well, he was a proponent of systematic integration instead of radical desegregation. In a 1964 interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?, Wilkins declared,
We Negroes want the improvements in the public school system – and among them, of course, the elimination of segregation, based upon race – the institution of the same quality education in the schools attended by our children as those attended by other children, and we want Negro teachers and we want Negro supervisors, and we want all the opportunity, but the only way our form of government and our structure of society can survive is by some common indoctrination of our citizenry, and we have found this in the public school system. And, for any reformer, black or white, zealot or not, to come along and say, "I'll destroy it, if it doesn't do like I want it to do," is very dangerous business, as far as I'm concerned.[11]
However, his moderate views increasingly brought him into conflict with younger, more militant black activists who saw him as an "Uncle Tom."
Wilkins was also a member of Omega Psi Phi, a fraternity with a civil rights focus and one of the intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternities established for African Americans.
In 1964, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP.[12]
During his tenure, the NAACP played a pivotal role in leading the nation into the Civil Rights Movement and spearheaded the efforts that led to significant civil rights victories, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1968, Wilkins also served as chair of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Human Rights. After turning 70 in 1971, he faced increased calls to step down as NAACP chief.[13]
In 1977, at the age of 76, Wilkins finally retired from the NAACP and was succeeded by
The players in this drama of frustration and indignity are not commas or semicolons in a legislative thesis; they are people, human beings, citizens of the United States of America.
— Roy Wilkins
Views
Wilkins was a staunch
In 1951,
United States Information and Educational Exchange (USIE) in the Gold Coast, and I suspect everywhere else in Africa, badly needs a through-going, sympathetic and regretful but straight talking treatment of the whole Robeson episode... there's no way the Communists score on us more easily and more effectively out here, than on the US. Negro problem in general, and on the Robeson case in particular. And, answering the latter, we go a long way toward answering the former.[14][16]
The finished article published by the NAACP was called Paul Robeson: Lost Shepherd,
At the time of Robeson's widely misquoted[18] declaration at the Paris Peace Conference that blacks would not support the United States in a war against the Soviet Union because of the continued lynchings and their legal second-class citizen status after World War II,[19] Wilkins stated that regardless of the number of lynchings that then occurred or would occur, black Americans would always serve in the armed forces.[20]
Wilkins also threatened to cancel a charter of an NAACP youth group in 1952 if it did not cancel its planned Robeson concert.
Support for military
Wilkins' views towards the participation of black military members in the US military was a point of contention between him and other prominent civil rights leaders. While most civil rights groups and activists stayed quiet or spoke out against the Vietnam War, Wilkins spoke about what he believed African-Americans could gain from serving in the military. An article posted in the Western Journal of Black Studies suggests that black troops were fighting for equality both in the United States as well as overseas. Wilkins emphasized the financial benefits of serving in the military along with the importance of African-American citizens participating in the first integrated American army.[21]
Wilkins's efforts to further equality in the realm of international affairs were publicly recognized in 1969, when he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon Johnson.[22]
Death and legacy
Wilkins died on September 8, 1981, in New York City, at the age of 80. During his later life Wilkins was frequently referred to as the "Senior Statesman" of the Civil Rights Movement.[2]
In 1982, his autobiography Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins was published posthumously.[23]
The
Gil Scott-Heron mentioned Wilkins in his spoken word song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with this lyric: "There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkins strolling through Watts in a red, black and green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving for just the proper occasion." Amiri Baraka stated, in his "Civil Rights Poem", that "if i ever see roywilkins [sic.] on the sidewalks imonna [sic.] stick half my sandal up his ass". In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 34 cent stamp honoring Wilkins.[28] In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante listed Roy Wilkins on his list of the 100 Greatest African Americans.[29]
He is played by Joe Morton in the 2016 television drama All the Way.[30]
See also
- Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
- Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
- List of civil rights leaders
- Roger Wilkins, nephew of Roy, also a prominent civil rights activist
- Roy Wilkins Auditorium, an arena in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Timeline of the civil rights movement
- Thurgood Marshall, Wilkins' colleague at the NAACP and U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
References
- ^ Roy Wilkins, Spartacus Educational website, UK
- ^ a b c d e f g Roy Wilkins, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica online September 19, 2009.
- ^ ISBN 9781476604176.
- ISBN 0-8454-2107-7
- ^ Walsh, James (May 10, 2023). "Mechanic Arts alumni fight to keep St. Paul high school's memory alive: 'It was a special place'". Star Tribune. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
- ^ Founders Civilrights.org.
- ^ David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
- ^ "Roy Wilkins" Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 6th Edition 2019.
- ^ Lusted, Marcia Amidon, Cobblestone, Vol. 35, Issue 2, February 2019.
- ^ Rustin, Bayard (1964). "The Meaning of Birmingham". In Goodman, Paul (ed.). Seeds of Liberation. George Braziller. p. 318. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
- ^ Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. "Roy Wilkins". Robert Penn Warren's Who Speaks for the Negro? Archive. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ^ NAACP Spingarn Medal Archived August 2, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ""Races: A Leader's Dissonant Swan Song," July 12, 1976". Time. July 12, 1976. Archived from the original on December 6, 2008. Retrieved December 16, 2010.
- ^ a b c Foner, Henry. Paul Robeson: A Century of Greatness, pp. 112–115.
- ^ a b Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson, 1989, p. 396.
- ^ American Consul, Accra. 179. January 9, 1951, USIE: Request for Special Story on Paul Robeson declassified October 19, 1979.
- ^ Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson, 1989, p. 395.
- ^ Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson, 1989, pg 358.
- ^ Foner, Phillip. Paul Robeson Speaks, 1978, p. 197.
- ^ Wilkins, Roy. Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins, p. 200–205.
- ^ Ingram, Glen (May 2006). "NAACP Support of the Vietnam War: 1963-1969". Western Journal of Black Studies. 30 (1): 54–61. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
- ^ Judy Muhlberg (June 14, 1976). "Medal of Freedom" (PDF). Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. p. 43. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
- ISBN 9780670142293.
- ^ Joiner, Lottie (September 2001). "Military Honored with Roy Wilkins Awards and Other Distinctions". New Crisis. 108 (5): 77. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
- ]
- ^ "Humphry School of Public Affairs". University of Minnesota.
- ^ "Roy Wilkins Recreation Center : NYC Parks". www.nycgovparks.org. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
- ^ "Stamp Series". United States Postal Service. Archived from the original on August 10, 2013. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
- ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
- ^ Margaret Lenker (April 29, 2016). "'Scandal' Actor Joe Morton on His First Off-Broadway Role". Variety.
- ^ "Colman Domingo, Chris Rock, Audra McDonald Starring in 'Rustin' for Obamas' Higher Ground". Variety. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
Sources
- Yvonne Ryan, Roy Wilkins: The Quiet Revolutionary and the NAACP. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2014.
- Arvarh E. Strickland, "Roy Wilkins," American National Biography Online, February. 2000.
External links
- Roy Wilkins in MNopedia, the Minnesota Encyclopedia
- The Roy Wilkins Memorial in St. Paul, Minnesota: a virtual tour.
- The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
- Oral History Interview with Roy Wilkins, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- The short film "Roy Wilkins: The Right to Dignity" is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- Roy Wilkins's FBI files hosted at the Internet Archive
- Roy Wilkins at Find a Grave