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[[image - NAACP logo]]
NAACP FOUNDED 1909
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

MARTHA'S VINEYARD BRANCH OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS

[[image]]
Ben Hook will go anywhere and speak to everyone about the work of the NAACP.

[[images - scenes from the awards banquet]]

Address by
Benjamin L. Hooks
Executive Director
NAACP
Freedom Awards Banquet
June, 29, 1979
Jubilee Day

This has been an eventful year and we have had an exciting convention in Louisville this week.

We testified before Congress on the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia question.  We dealt with the Communication Act rewrite.  We labored assiduously in an effort to sensitize the public on the discriminatory use and the cruelty of capital punishment.

We have been engaged all year in efforts to stop the convening of a constitutional convention.

We have defended affirmative action in employment and education.  We evaluated and opposed proposals for the resumption of the draft.  Your Association has supported efforts to secure ratification of the D.C. Voter Amendment, and we have opposed tuition tax credit for parents of children attending private, non-public schools.

Probably one of our most urgent involvements the remainder of this year will be a massive voter registration, voter education, and as you put it so well, Mr. Mayor, voter participation drive.  We have come to say to black Americans at this convention, indeed, we are calling for blacks to cooperate with the 1980 census in order that we will not be either accidentally or deliberately under-counted as we have been in the past.

We have taken an incandescently clear stand in favor of the enactment of a comprehensive national health insurance plan.

We shall continue our efforts in working with the President

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