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COLD WAR AND BLACK LIBERATION    CHENG

Roy Wilkins, then acting executive secretary of the NAACP, reported that the CIO was one of the major sponsors of the mobilization effort and that the proscribed unions and many of their NAACP members were not in good standing ideologically or financially with the CIO.(33) The effects of this exclusionary policy adopted by the NAACP at this initial period is perhaps aptly summed up by Matthews:

Having allowed themselves to become drunk with power and charged with super patriotism, they turned like head-hunters upon their own membership and chopped them to pieces while the real enemy looked on with unsuppressed glee. (34)

This exclusionary action taken by the NAACP was to have implications for the posture taken by the NAACP in the field os international affairs. In 1949, prior to the Mobilization Conference, the NAACP has already come out in support of the Mashall Plan. And at its annual convention in 1951, it adopted a resolution condemning the "imperialist exploitation" of people in "industrially backward areas." On the other hand, at this same convention, the stance taken at the Washington conference in 1950 was reflected in the organziation´s stance on the Korean War:

... we warn our branches and youth councils against so-called "peace" organizations that have in the forefront of their program the demand to "bring back our boys from Korea". 
Such peace organizations are not only urging a policy desired by the communist block of nations, but one likely to cause more and bigger wars throughout the world by making aggression in Korea successful. (35)*

Thus, the NAACP did not consider that dangerous road blocks were being created by the Cold War. The NAACP officially saw no contradiction in fighting for racial justice and supporting the United States official anti-Communist doctrine at home and abroad.

But, the NAACP was not alone. A Philip Randolph, for instance, in organizing a Blacks to Resist the Draft movement in 1948, took extreme measures to prevent anyone from joining or participating who might be associated with communism. And the fate of Benjamin
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* Associating those who were advocating peace as tools or agents of a foreign power had a long-range impact on the thinking of the NAACP. In 1965, for example, I was a delegate from Michigan tried to persuade the convention to take a stand against the Vietnam War. His resolution was received by some delegates as representing a communist tactic. The resolution, as I recall, never even came to the floor for a vote.

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 11:28:32