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[[header-photo of Tony Brown]] Tony Brown's Comments NATIONALLY SYNDICATED COLUMN The Chain Of Freedom Do we really need the NAACP? Last summer, on successive days, Negroes attacked our largest and most viable civil rights organization on the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, two of America's most influential White news organs. But what distinguished these assaults from being ordinary legitimate debates over issues was their call for the extinction of the NAACP. Kenneth Clark, whose professional success is directly attributed to the NAACP, paid it back on the pages of the New York Times with one of the most vicious and pathetically illogical arguments ever offered. The NAACP should disband because the board of directors is not White enough. Therefore, his logic concluded, it is of no further use to Afro-Americans. The Wall Street Journal's equally irrelevant tirade by an obscure "labor consultant" also called for the death of the NAACP. His equally pathetic logic: the members of the board of directors do not spend enough time in the slums. Although the question of this group's continued existence is germane and worthy of debate, these two men in their rush to judgement lost sight of the issue. It is also appropriate, in addition to questioning the Association's right to exist, to ask: "Why should I support the NAACP?" Let's answer that question by asking two more questions. We should want to know what it has done for us lately and what it has ever done for us? A Racist Media In addition to being the only place that a Black can go when seeking redress for a discrimination grievance—making it the major source of resources—it also has a broader influence. For example, take commercial television. The situation comedies on television project some of the most damaging racist myths, while keeping current old White supremacy folklore that would otherwise die without the indoctrination and recruitment of a new generation into these racist doctrines. Conspicuous among this genre are two programs that further the belief that Black people are incapable and unworthy parents who have babies out of an erotic relationship, rather than a loving one. This results, of course, in the abandonment of the children to welfare systems or, in the case of television, outright abandonment to White parents—who are, unlike Blacks, always caring and understanding—to raise them. Another situation does not need this psychologically diagnostic approach to detect the racist characterization of television. In "Just Our Luck," the Black (called "Shabu," an obvious variation of "Sambo") addresses the White as "Master." I should say "did" because the NAACP Beverly Hills-Hollywood Chapter put a stop to it. Under pressure, the television network in question has revised the script and will offer to millions of Americans a story of two human beings—equal in abilities and rights. Could you as an individual have written a letter, as the NAACP did, and protected your [[2 images of the KKK]] child's mind—and your own—from the message of White supremacy? I know that I could not have accomplished the same thing as an individual. That's just one of the NAACP's current gifts to our well-being as Afro-Americans. NAACP Gifts Now let's look at the NAACP's historic role in keeping bread and potatoes on the table, a roof over our heads (both in public housing and middle-class residential neighborhoods, without restrictive covenants calling for Whites only) and stopping the White lynch mobs from frying us in the South or hanging us at the end of a rope in the West. Approximately 3,224 persons, mostly Black men, were lynched between 1889 and 1918 alone. It was crusading journalist Ida Wells-Barnett, co-founder of the NAACP, and Walter White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP (and author of "Rope and Faggot: the Biography of Judge Lynch"), and the NAACP's persistent pushing of congressional anti-lynching legislation that led to the end of this barbaric rite. In 1952, for the first time in 71 years, a Black man or woman was not dragged from bed in the middle of the night, beaten into submission and semi-consciousness by a howling mob of Whites and put to a slow, horribly painful death at the end of a rope or under the fumes of lighted gasoline, peeling away the skin and flesh—without a trial or even formal charges. If you're young enough, you're probably having difficulty believing that I'm telling the truth. And if you're old enough, you should be sick to the stomach because you can remember when your luck could have run out like it did on those unfortunate men and women who died by lynching simply because God loved them enough to put melanin in their skin. Today, that is almost an inconceivable fear. Almost because we're not free yet; inconceivable because of the safety net of civil rights laws spread under us by the NAACP to protect our constitutional rights. It was also the NAACP that conducted the long and successful campaign to equalize salaries between Black and White teachers. There is not enough space here to list all that the NAACP has accomplished on our behalf. Neither is there enough space to list all that we need to overcome in order to enjoy our birthright as Americans. But this is all that I need to understand to know that we cannot let the NAACP die. Guaranteed Failure However, I also recognize that we are killing it—and the best chance we have for freedom—by not joining. It's just that simple, because by joining, you give it numerical, collective and political muscle—as well as the financial resources to keep the dragons at bay. Moreover, it is neither important that you agree with the NAACP's official position on every issue (—I don't) nor that you personally like all of its leaders. It's only important that you realize that your interests are best served by you serving the TONY BROWN'S JOURNAL JANUARY/MARCH 1984 106
