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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

THE HEART OF THE SOUTH

THE organization of a dozen, lusty, young branches as a new Dixie District in the heart of the South marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the N. A. A. C. P. We are not unmindful of the good work done there by the branches at New Orleans, El Paso, and Key West. Nevertheless, we have heretofore been essentially a northern organization calling the attention of the nation to the worst of the evils oppressing colored folk, reporting the shrieks and moans that came to our ears from across the Line when some particularly brutal barbarity cried to heaven, a voice trying to speak for inarticulate millions. With the entry of Atlanta into the fight, flanked by Richmond, Norfolk, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Augusta, Athens, Savannah, Charleston, Columbia, Jacksonville, and Tampa, we feel that the hosts of the cotton kingdom have suddenly become articulate and the National Association a real first line defense facing the enemy at proper range. 

That the younger sons will come to grips with their local problems in short order we have no doubt, but to Atlanta belongs the honor of launching a fight of first importance without waiting for the ink to dry on their application for a charter.

Each of these new southern branches has local problems facing them as important as the one with which Atlanta has come to grips. Richmond is taking steps to see that colored principals are placed at the head of the colored public schools in that city and Charleston has a similar problem to attack.

The Savannah Branch is taking steps to defeat for appointment to a Federal judgeship a man who had openly expressed sentiments hostile to the race, and who refused to receive a delegation of colored postal employees, although he was at the time a member of Congress from Savannah. Columbia has a fight on its hands against a residential segregation ordinance which passed its first reading in the City Council during the last days of March. R. G. Finlay, rector of Trinity Church, and three professors on the faculty of the University

[[image]] OFFICERS OF THE JACKSONVILLE, FLA., BRANCH [[/image]]

of South Carolina, the white members of the colored auxiliary to the Associated Charities of Columbia, have written us that they are preparing to oppose the ordinance and the new branch should lose no time in joining forces with them. Jacksonville has taken steps to secure justice in the courts for a colored man who killed a wealthy white man whom he found in his home. Efforts have been made by the police to hold this colored man on some trumped up charge of robbery and of not being married to the woman in the case. The Jacksonville Branch has engaged a special attorney to look after his interests. Mr. Wilson Jefferson, President of the Augusta Branch, writes that "On March 5 we got out perhaps the largest crowd ever assembled for a meeting of the character of ours in this old town, to hear James W. Johnson.

I am not going to be satisfied until my people know the truth about some things very close to their future well-being and happiness." So all throughout the South the new branches are bravely taking up the fight.

The roll of paid-up members as we go to press, made up at a later date than the
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                         THE OUTER POCKET                     19

membership statistics below, is eloquent of the good work accomplished by the Field Secretary on his first organizing effort:
ATLANTA, GA. ...................... 139
TAMPA, FLA. ....................... 107
RICHMOND, VA. .....................  63
SAVANNAH, GA. .....................  60
COLUMBIA, S. C. ...................  46
JACKSONVILLE, FLA. ................  31
ATHENS, GA. .......................  29
RALEIGH, N. C. ....................  29
CHARLESTON, S. C. .................  29
AUGUSTA, GA. ......................  28
GREENSBORO, N. C. .................  27
NORFOLK, VA. ......................  26
DURHAM, N. C. .....................  25
                                    639
"There is no doubt that a new spirit is awakening in the South," Mr. Johnson says, "and that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People offers the precise medium for the exercise of that spirit. When the Association has spread over the entire South, as it is certain to do, and the thinking men and women of the race feel and know that they are leagued together with thinking men and women of both races all over the country for one and the same purpose, when each group feels and knows that it has the co-operation and support of all the other groups, many are the changes that are going to be brought about.

"I am not only gratified by the campaign in the South, but I have been encouraged and inspired by it. And I ought to add that I had a most enjoyable time; the six thousand people whom I met not only listened to what I had to say and responded to my efforts, but, without exception, treated me in full accordance with the fine old tradition of Southern hospitality."

How ready the South is to join forces with and subscribe to the uncompromising demands of the N. A. A. C. P. is further testified by a letter received from Tampa just as we go to press, asking for a charter as a branch:

"We are enclosing check for one hundred and nineteen dollars ($119.00) as per list enclosed. The report would have been sent several days ago but for the ambition of the membership to send not less than one hundred members. We are sending one hundred and seven and our motto is to increase the membership to five hundred within the net few days."

Under date of March 31, a circular letter is being sent out to the entire Association membership with a blank enclosed urging each member from among his or her friends. It is not only because in numbers lies our strength that we make this earnest plea. It is not only because the N. A. A. C. P. is fighting for the rights of all colored people that it should be supported by every one, white or black, who has the future of democracy in America at heart. We are in the war, and always in times of international stress the support of many large contributors who support organizations dealing with internal problems is withdrawn. The first year of the European war was so lean that the Association had to curtail its activities all along the line for lack of funds; yet it is a moment when we must be particularly alert if we would take advantage of war-created opportunities to advance the status of colored people, as the disenfranchised women of England and the oppressed masses of Russia have advanced theirs.

All new membership received from this appeal will of course be entered to the credit of the local branch of the city from which they come, and we count upon the active cooperation of all branch officers in shoving the Association membership well across the 10,000 mark within the next month.


The Outer Pocket

I AM writing you this for special information and it is this: I want to know whether we are the people to go to Liberia, Africa, or not. I am told, by the Bible, that we are the people to go back there because we are the children of Ham. If this is so let me know in the next edition of the CRISIS at your earliest date. If you