Viewing page 70 of 256

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
JOIN NAACP TODAY

Court on June 1 handed down a unanimous decision upsetting an eight-year injunction banning civil rights organizations from operating in Alabama.
-As a result of an accelerated voter registration campaign in which several other organizations cooperated with the NAACP, a record total of 6,000,000 black voters were qualified to vote in the presidential election.

1965 - The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is passed by Congress and signed by President Johnson on August 6.
- Leontyne Price, 50th Spingarn Medalist.

1966 - On March 9, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals permanently enjoins Mississippi from barring the registration of the NAACP as a domestic corporation. That decision ended this form of harassment against the Association.
- Arthur B. Spingarn, NAACP President since 1940, retires. Kivie Kaplan is elected to succeed him
- Robert C. Weaver as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development becomes first Negro member of a U.S. President's Cabinet, January 18.
- John H. Johnson, founder and president of the Johnson Publishing Company of Chicago, 51st Spingarn Medalist.

1967 - President Johnson names Roy Wilkins to the 11-member National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders which was created to investigate the causes of riots in urban centers.
- The NAACP Emergency Relief Program is launched in Mississippi for the purpose of providing money for destitute persons to purchase food stamps.
- Senator Edward W. Brooke, III, is named 52nd Spingarn Medalist.
- Senate confirms President Johnson's nomination of Thurgood Marshall as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, August 30.

1968 - The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders in its report to President Johnson charges that white racism is at the root of the nation's racial tensions and conflict.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., April 4.
- The Fair Housing Act of 1968 is signed into law.

1969 - NAACP successfully marshalls all of its resources to obtain rejection by the Senate of Clement F. Haynsworth, President Nixon's racist Supreme Court nominee.
- NAACP National Afro-American Builders Corporation is launched to enable minority builders to obtain bonding and contracts.
- NAACP Washington Bureau Director Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., 54th Spingarn Medalist.

1970 - Senate rejects G. Harrold Carswell as Supreme Court nominee following intensive campaign by NAACP in opposition to his nomination.
- NAACP National Housing Development Corporation is launched to assist branches in sponsoring low- and middle-income housing.
- The first NAACP day care center is opened by the Jamaica, New York, NAACP Branch.
- Following on-the-spot investigation by NAACP General Counsel Nathaniel R. Jones, the commanding officer of the U.S. Air Force base at Goose Bay, Nova Scotia, is transferred and unfounded charges against a group of black servicemen are dropped.
- Jacob Lawrence, artist, 55th Spingarn Medalist.

1971 - Federal District Judge Stephen J. Roth rules in Michigan that residential segregation patterns, and the consequent school segregation, result from state and local government actions.
- NAACP provides strike benefits for black, as well as white, striking pulpwood workers in Mississippi.
- An NAACP team headed by General Counsel Jones visits U.S. Army bases in West Germany and conducts an investigation among black soldiers of charges of racism and discrimination. The subsequent Jones study team's report, "The Search for Military Justice," sparked several significant legal and administrative reforms by the Department of Defense.
- Leon H. Sullivan, clergyman-activist, 56th Spingarn Medalist.
- Arthur B. Spingarn dies, December 1.

1972 - Congress strengthens the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission giving it enforcement powers.
- The first NAACP prison branch is chartered at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, July 6.
- NAACP assumes the defense of 21 black Kitty Hawk seamen charged with rioting and disorderly conduct.
- NAACP General Counsel Jones is named co-chairman, with Lt. Gen. Claire Hutchin, Jr., of the Joint Military Task Force on Justice which presented its report to Defense Secretary Melvin Laird on November
- The Flint, Michigan, school board names an elementary school for Roy Wilkins.
- Gordon Parks, writer, film-maker, composer, 57th Spingarn Medalist.

1973 - The NAACP eventually assumes the defense of 23 of the 25 Kitty Hawk sailors charged with rioting and disorderly conduct. When the last trial ends in mid-April, only four of the 23 men facing courts-martial are convicted of rioting aboard ship. Eleven win significant reductions in their charges and eight others are acquitted of all charges.
- Wilson C. Riles, California Superintendent of Public Instruction, 58th Spingarn Medalist.

68