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[[image - black & white head shot photograph of Stephen G. Spottswood]]

NAACP BOARD CHAIRMAN
STEPHEN G. SPOTTSWOOD
DIES IN D.C. AT 77

Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood of the AME Zion Church and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Natinal Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died suddenly at 9:30 p.m., on Sunday, December 1, at his home here. He was 77 years og age.

Stephen Gill Spottswood was born on July 18, 1897, in Boston, son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Elizabeth Spottswood. He attended Albright College in Reading, Pa., where he received his bachelor's degree in 1917. Two years later he received a degree in Theology from the Gordon Divinity School in Boston. He next attended the Yale Divinity School where he did graduate study from 1923 to 1924.

Between retirement and death, Bishop Spottswood was vice chairman of the Connecticnal Budget Committee, a denominational office. He maintained his office at his former residence, at 1931 16th Street, N.W. His lastest residence was at the home of his wife, 1221 W Street, N.W.

As an active civil rights leader, Bishop Spottswood spearheaded desegregation of public accommodations facilities in Washington. He was a member of the NAACP since 1919, and was president of the Washington, D.C., Branch from 1947 to 1952.

He was elected chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors on April 10, 1961, to complete the unexpired term of Dr. Robert C. Weaver, who resigned to accept an appointment in the Johnson Administration as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

In expressing the profound sense of loss that was pervasive throughout the NAACP on December 2, the three principal officers said in a joint telegram to Mrs. Spottswood:

Our condolences go out to you in the death of your distinguished husband and our leader Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood. All his life he served his church and the NAACP even as Bishop Alexander Walters was a signer of the call for the organization of the NAACP in 1909. We remember and salute his courage when in 1970 he branded President Nixon as anti-black and refused to change because he was standing squarely on the record of the Administration on black citizens. He gave superlative leadership during the turbulent nineteen sixties when the Association grew in membership and influence. May God bless soul and also make his face to shine upon you in this hour. 

The telegram was signed by Kivie Kaplan, President, Dr. Buell Gallagher, Vice Chairman, and Roy Wilkins, Executive Director.

Focus On Future By New Detroit NAACP Prexy

By AGNES STEWART

When Larry Washington graduated from Talladega college in Alabama in 1936, two career choices were open to him in his hometown of New Orleans — schoolteacher or mail carrier.

Neither held much appeal for a young man who had seen enough of Dixie style discrimination to want to get away. So he packed his bag and headed north to Detroit, where he got a job as desk clerk at the Black YMCA on St. Antoine.

But young Washington didn't spend all his time behind a desk. With a social conscience as alive as his, community involvement is a must. And a long career of public service to his adopted town was capped last week when he was elected president of the Detroit NAACP. 

His affectionate nickname, "Tubby," a reference to his portly size, hardly masks the drive of the quietly unassuming man whose affiliations in civic and community organizations fill half a page.

The job at the Y was followed by another as janitor at a high class women's store downtown. In 1939 he became a screw machine operator at Ford Motor Co. Within three years he was a salaried employee.

"The racial attitudes weren't really a whole lot different in the north than in the south, just more subtle," he recalled. "Still, I know that promotion would never have been possible in the south at that time." 

[[image - black & white head shot photograph of Larry Washington]] 
[[caption]] LARRY WASHINGTON [[/caption]]

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