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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The Annual Meeting
In accordance with the Constitution of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, our annual meeting will be held in New York City on January 2, 1917.  The afternoon session, which will be held in the assembly hall of The United Charities Building, 105 East Twenty-second Street, at 2:30 P.M., will be devoted to the reports of the national officers, the election of officers, and the transaction of business.  The Nominating Committee, consisting of Mrs. Florence Kelley, Joseph P. Loud, and Archibald H. Grimké, appointed by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr. J. E. Springarn, in accordance with Article VIII of the Constitution, submits the following list of nominations for members of the Board of Directors for the term expiring January, 1920:
Miss Jane Addams, Chicago.
Dr. C.E. Bentley, Chicago.
Rev. Hutchins C. Bishop, New York.
Dr. F. N. Cardozo, Baltimore.
Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York.
Miss Mary White Ovington, Brooklyn.
Mr. Charles Edward Russell, New York.
Dr. John G. Underhill, Brooklyn.
Miss Irene Lewissohn, New York.
This evening session, through the courtesy of Dr. Bishop, will be help at St. Philips Church, 212 West 134th Street, at 8.15 P. M., and will be devoted to the reports of the branches, and to a discussion of means for effecting closer relations between the branches, the directors, and the national executive officers.  Each branch is urged most earnestly to send an official delegate to report in person, and to send his name to the secretary before the program goes to press December 26.  Every member of the N.A.A.C.P. who can possibly reach New York should make an especial effort to attend.
Dinner at sixty cents a plate will be served between the two sessions under the auspices of the New York Branch and we want to make it a big party.  Please notify the National Secretary, Roy Nash, if you desire seats. 

The Abbeville Lynching
The full story of the lynching of Anthony Crawford in Abbeville, South Carolina, which was investigated on the ground by the secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., appeared in the Independent for December 11.  There are, however, two items which must be recorded here; first: As a result of the secretary's visit, Governor Manning has written a letter to Oswald Garrison Villard, vice-president of the N.A.A.C.P., in which he says: 
"I realize the gravity of this offense and am determined to do everything in my power to bring the offenders to justice. I have called on the sheriff of Abbeville County to take the necessary steps to prevent any unlawful action with regard to the expulsion of the family of Crawford.
"I am giving serious consideration  to this matter with a view to making recommendations to the legislature, so as to be able to deal with such conditions when they arise."
Secondly, the Crawford family was not expelled on November 15. 
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Governor Manning, of South Carolina

The Vandervall Case
It is a great pleasure to record that the attorneys interested by the N.A.A.C.P. in the case of Dr. Isabel Vandervall, who was refused admittance to The Women's and Children's Hospital of Syracuse, New York, because of her color and after they had contracted to admit her as an interne, were able to secure a substantial offer of settlement for Dr. Vandervall without bringing the case to trial.

Gaining Strength in the South
"To be a race woman in New Orleans is a crime at best," writes J. B. Montgomery, in the Chicago Defender, "but to be one and a prisoner is doubly so.  Girls, mere babes, and women, for the least offense are put to work on the public streets of New Orleans whenever there is a question as to their color.... I have spoken to the preachers and leading men and women of the town time and again to protest these wrongs perpetrated on our women and every devilish preacher will tell you to keep quiet as the white folks are letting us live.
"On my return to the city, I was glad to see the news that The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will make an attack on the use of our women prisoners to clean gutters and public parks with a red neck slave driver with a Winchester or automatic to shoot her down should she rebel.  The association need no expect any help from the preachers.... My last plea to the people is to help the N.A.A.C.P. in their flight and ask for the resignation of every preacher who cannot show a college diploma."
Without going into the question of the justice or injustice of Mr. Montgomery's remarks about the apathy of these pastors, it is worthy that the other half of his statement should be heralded throughout the land.  That the N.A.A.C.P. can organize in the far South is a noteworthy evidence of growing strength; that the New Orleans Branch has the courage and the ability to initiate and carry on this kind of a fight is a fact of which the whole organization may be proud. 

The Model Schools of Gary, Indiana
The Gary Branch is very much worried over the question of segregation in the schools.  A teacher writes:
"Six years ago when I became connected with these schools, the colored children were in a building by themselves.  Later, a large building, The Froebel School, was completed and both colored and white children placed in it, the colored classes remaining separate as when in the former building. All the formal work of the colored teachers in separate classes, the special teachers receiving them in the same way as class units.
"In September last, two classes were removed from the Froebel building to a small school more convenient to their homes, as it appeared, and the idea became spread abroad that it was done because they were colored.  A committee of the Gary Branch of the N.A.A.C.P. visited the superintendent and School Board with but small satisfaction."
Of the accuracy of the last statement we have no doubt.  Superintendent Wirt, in reply to a protest from national headquarters, makes it clear that the branch is right in entertaining suspicions.  He says: "the colored children in the public schools in Gary, Indiana, have been segregated from the very beginning.  It is a settles policy in this community to continue this segregation." No wonder the Gary schools are considered as models throughout the land.

Our Chairman Popular in the South
We are sure that it was a mere oversight on the part of the reporter that the Columbia State omitted to mention that the lecturer spoke of below is chairman of the Board of Directors of The National Associated for the Advancement of colored People. 
"The series of five lectures to be delivered at the University of South Carolina this week by Dr. J. E. Spingarn, formerly professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, on the history and development of literary criticism, saw a gratifying beginning yesterday when many graduate students and seniors at the university and members of the faculties of Chicora College for Women, Columbia College and the seminaries, as well as many women from the city, heard Dr. Spingarn's lecture on "Critical Theories of the Greeks and Romans."
"His lectures are informal and discussion and questions by the audience are always welcomed.  Although he is a leading authority on literary criticism in this country, the broad and profound conceptions of subject which he imparts to his audience are clothed with a simplicity and charm that render them all the more understandable.  the pleasing personality of this eminent scholar and author adds to the pleasure and enthusiasm of the series."