The response of the moderate wing of the civil rights movement to the war in vietnam

Historical Journal

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 669-701

  Hall, Simon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84965118702     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X03003200     Document Type: Article

References (165)

1. Peter J. Ling, Martin Luther King, Jr. (London and New York, 2002), pp. 265–267.
2. Robert Cook, Sweet land of liberty? The African-American struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century (London and New York, 1998), p. 118.
3. Denton L. Watson, ‘Reassessing the role of the NAACP in the civil rights movement’, Historian, 55 (1993), pp. 453–468
4. Watson, ‘The papers of the “101st senator”: Clarence Mitchell Jr. and civil rights’, Historian, 63 (2002), pp. 623–641.
5. Roy Wilkins with Tom Matthews, Standing fast: the autobiography of Roy Wilkins (New York, 1994), pp. xi, 19, 45–6, 48–9, 55–6, 104–7, 154–5, 220
6. see, for example, John Dittmer's account of how the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) national leadership helped to blunt the radicalism of the movement in Jackson, Mississippi - John Dittmer, Local people: the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi (Urbana and Chicago, 1994), pp. 160–169
7. Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, pp. 117–18, 223.
8. For the grass-roots perspective, see especially Charles M. Payne, I've got the light of freedom: the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1995).
9. Nancy J. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., and the struggle for civil rights (Princeton, NJ, 1989), pp. xi-xii, 4, 119.
10. Adam Fairclough, Better day coming: blacks and equality, 1890–2000 (New York and London, 2001), p. 236
11. Ling, Martin Luther King, Jr., pp. 47–48
12. Jervis Anderson, Bayard Rustin: troubles I've seen: a biography (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1997), pp. 186–9, 198, 247–64.
13. Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, pp. 201–2, 208.
14. See Manfred Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Vietnam War, 1964–1968’, in David K. Adams and Cornelius A. van Minnen, eds., Aspects of war in American history (Keele, 1997), p. 220.
15. Letter from Roy Wilkins to Joseph Stern, 17 Mar. 1966, in NAACP papers, group IV box A86, folder ‘Vietnam correspondence, 1966’, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; report from the New York Times, 3 Aug. 1965, C.P. 16, in Howard Zinn papers (processed), box 3, folder 5, State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW)
16. Bayard Rustin, ‘Dr. King's painful dilemma’, in Bayard Rustin, Down the line: the collected writings of Bayard Rustin (Chiacgo, 1971), pp. 169–170.
17. Henry Wallace to John Morsell, 13 Jan. 1966, in NAACP papers, group IV box A86, folder ‘Vietnam correspondence, 1966’, Library of Congress. Although Manfred Berg's analysis of the NAACP is quite sympathetic, he still accuses the organization of ‘moral and intellectual hypocrisy’ in not opposing the war. See Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 214.
18. ‘Sidetrack’, New York Post, 18 July 1965, Roy Wilkins papers, box 39, folder ‘Newspaper column clippings, 1964–1965’, Library of Congress.
19. Charles DeBenedetti, An American ordeal: the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era, assisting author Charles Chatfield (Syracuse, 1990), p. 120
20. ‘We declare peace: call for an assembly of unrepresented people in Washington, D.C., on August 6 through 9’, p. 1, papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, 1944–68 (microfilm), reel 9, f 42, SHSW.
21. Report of the executive director for June, July, and August, 1965, 13 Sept. 1965, Papers of the NAACP: supplement to part 1, 1961–1965, editorial advisor August Meier, ed. Mark Fox (Frederick, MD, 1982–1997), reel 1, Cambridge University, England
22. memo from Wilkins to branch and youth council presidents re ‘Washington, D.C. Jamboree August 6–9, 1965’, 30 July 1965, NAACP papers, group III box A328, folder ‘Vietnam War, 1964–1965’, Library of Congress.
23. Roy Wilkins, ‘SNCC's foreign policy’, 16 Jan. 1966, in Roy Wilkins papers, box 39, folder ‘Newspaper column clippings, 1966’, Library of Congress.
24. David J. Garrow, Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (London, 1993), p. 555
25. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 223.
26. Garrow, Bearing the cross, p. 555.
27. ‘Dr. King's new role’, New York Post, 15 Apr. 1967
28. Roy Wilkins papers, box 39, folder ‘Newspaper column clippings 1967–1969’, Library of Congress.
29. Roy Wilkins, ‘LBJ's programs would aid negro’, Detroit News, 26 Aug. 1967, office files of Frederick Panzer, box 331, folder - civil rights 1967–8, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas (LBJ).
30. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 224.
31. See Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 214.
32. ‘Carmichael assails Democrats, Liberals’, Washington Post, 19 Jan. 1967.
33. ‘… One freedom worker's views’, Southern Patriot, Oct. 1965, p. 3.
34. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) statement on the war in Vietnam, 6 Jan. 1966, in Massimo Teodori, The new left: a documentary history (London, 1970), p. 251.
35. Fannie Lou Hamer, 22 Nov. 1966, Ruleville, MS, interview by Howard Romaine quoted in Eric Burner, And gently he shall lead them: Robert Parris Moses and civil rights in Mississippi (New York and London, 1994), p. 186.
36. Wilkins, Standing fast, p. 321.
37. Joseph Wershba, ‘Daily closeup: Herbert Hill, NAACP's labor secretary’, New York Post, 14 Dec. 1959, p. 49.
38. See Wershba, ‘Daily closeup: Herbert Hill’
39. Paula F. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, pioneer of the civil rights movement (Baton Rouge and London, 1990), pp. 226–232
40. Wilkins, Standing fast, p. 221.
41. Author's interview with Herbert Hill, 16 May 2000.
42. Transcript, Roy Wilkins oral history interview I, 4 Jan. 1969, by Thomas H. Baker, internet copy, LBJ, p. 14.
43. Wilkins, Standing fast, p. 321.
44. Standing fast, p. 321.
45. Anderson, Bayard Rustin, p. 284.
46. Bayard Rustin, ‘From protest to politics: the future of the civil rights movement’, Commentary (Feb. 1965)
47. quoted in Rustin, Down the line, p. 115.
48. Down the line, p. 119.
49. Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, p. 181
50. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 225.
51. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 158.
52. Anderson, Bayard Rustin, p. 296.
53. Staughton Lynd, ‘Coalition politics or nonviolent revolution?’, Liberation (June-July 1965), p. 18.
54. Anderson, Bayard Rustin, pp. 291–292.
55. Bayard Rustin, pp. 293 and 298.
56. See John D'Emilio, ‘Homophobia and the trajectory of postwar American radicalism: the career of Bayard Rustin’, Radical History Review, 62 (1995).
57. See Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, pp. 17–18, 21 and 43.
58. See DeBenedetti, An American ordeal, pp. 85 and 100
59. Philip S. Foner, American labor and the Indochina war: the growth of union opposition (New York, 1971), pp. 30–32.
60. Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, p. 205.
61. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, p. 149; undated paper, the papers of A. Philip Randolph, ed. John H. Bracey, Jr, and August Meier (microfilm project of University Publications of America, 1990), reel 32, speeches and writings file, box 41, ‘Research notes and related material, undated, 196pp.’, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University (SML).
62. See also Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, p. 278.
63. A. Philip Randolph.
64. Garrow, Bearing the cross, p. 553
65. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, p. 278
66. DeBenedetti, An American ordeal, pp. 108 and 110. See letter from Lyndon Johnson to A. Philip Randolph, 15 Apr. 1965, in papers of A. Philip Randolph, reel 2, general correspondence, box 2, ‘A-W, 1965’ (SML).
67. Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: a biographical portrait (New York, 1972), p. 331
68. Anderson, Bayard Rustin, p. 301.
69. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, p. 278.
70. Report from the New York Times, 3 Aug. 1965, C.P. 16, in Howard Zinn papers, 1956–94 (processed), box 3, folder 5, SHSW.
71. Dennis C. Dickerson, Militant mediator: Whitney M. Young, Jr. (Lexington, KY, 1998), pp. 271–273.
72. Dickerson, Militant mediator, p. 247.
73. Dickerson, Militant mediator, p. 270.
74. Transcript, Roy Wilkins oral history interview I, 4 Jan. 1969, by Thomas H. Baker, internet copy, LBJ, p. 14.
75. Wilkins, Standing fast, p. 307.
76. Author's interview with Herbert Hill, 16 May 2000, and 9 Aug. 2000.
77. Author's interview with Herbert Hill, 16 May 2000.
78. See Julius Lester, ‘To hell with protest’, New South Student, 5 (1968).
79. ‘Vietnam called “excuse” for lag in rights fight’, Washington Post, 21 Jan. 1967, in office files of Frederick Panzer, box 331, folder - civil rights 1967–8, LBJ.
80. National Urban League (NUL) newsletter - Washington Bureau, vol. 1 no. 4 (30 June 1967), p. 3.
81. William A. Price, ‘NAACP and CORE reassess their goals’, National Guardian (New York), 17 July 1965, p. 3.
82. National Guardian.
83. Memorandum from Gloster Current to Roy Wilkins, 1 May 1967, p. 14
84. NAACP papers, group IV box C24, folder ‘Greenwich Village-Chelsea, NY, 1966–1967’, Library of Congress. My emphasis.
85. See Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, p. 206
86. ‘Use black power, says NAACP head’, Yakima Herald, 13 July 1966, in NAACP papers, group IV box A11, folder ‘Board of directors, Tanner, Jack E, 1966–1968’, Library of Congress.
87. See ‘NAACP stand on colonialism and U.S. foreign policy’, Crisis, 62 no. 1 (Jan. 1955), p. 23
88. Charles W. Cheng, ‘The Cold War: its impact on the black liberation struggle within the United States’, Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Freedom Movement, 13 no. 3 (1973), pp. 196–197.
89. At the 1950 NAACP annual convention, the Association passed a resolution against communist infiltration - see Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 215
90. Adam Fairclough, ‘Race and red-baiting’, in Jack E. Davis, ed., The civil rights movement (Malden, MA, and Oxford, 2001), p. 98
91. Gerald Horne, Black and red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American response to the Cold War, 1944–1963 (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 50–56.
92. NAACP board meeting, 13 Nov. 1950, quoted in Horne, Black and red, p. 129.
93. Quoted in ‘NAACP stand on colonialism and U.S. foreign policy’, Crisis, 62 no. 1 (Jan. 1955), p. 25.
94. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 215. NAACP papers, group box 328, folder ‘Vietnam War, 1964–1965’, Library of Congress.
95. See also Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 215.
96. ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’.
97. Roy Wilkins, ‘Sidetrack’, New York Post, 18 July 1965, Roy Wilkins papers, box 39, folder ‘Newspaper clippings, 1964–1965’, Library of Congress. My emphasis.
98. ‘SNCC's foreign policy’, New York Post, 16 Jan. 1966, Roy Wilkins papers, box 39, folder ‘Newspaper column clippings, 1966’, Library of Congress.
99. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 221.
100. ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 215.
101. ‘NAACP convention: some members complain about “restrictions”’, Movement (Aug. 1965), p. 6.
102. For a detailed account of this campaign see Serge Lang, The Scheer campaign (New York, 1967)
103. George Kaufmann, ‘Condemn war and ghettos’, Berkeley Barb, 2 no. 3 (21 Jan. 1966), p. 1; finding aid, Carlton B. Goodlett papers, 1942–67, SHSW.
104. Berkeley Barb.
105. See Payne, I've got the light of freedom, pp. 360–361
106. Dittmer, Local people, p. 178.
107. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) newsletter, vol. 2 no. 6 (c. Feb. 1968), SHSW.
108. The New Virginia newsletter, vol. 2 no. 1 (Mar. 1966), SNCC records, reel 44, Library of Congress.
109. Advance, 6 no. 4 (1966), p. 1, in NAACP papers, group IV box J7, folder ‘Printed matter NAACP by states, New York - NYC - Greenwich Village, 1966–1967’, Library of Congress.
110. Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 221.
111. See Thomas A. Johnson, ‘State's NAACP opposes the war and new charter’, New York Times, 23 Oct. 1967
112. Carolyn Dixon, ‘NAACP youths “rough”’, New York Amsterdam News, 28 Oct. 1967
113. Advance, 6 no. 27 (1967), p. 4
114. DuVernay had refused to be a ‘black mercenary for white imperialism’, see ‘Many challenge war, draft’, Southern Patriot, Feb. 1967, p. 8.
115. Adam Fairclough, Race and democracy: the civil rights struggle in Louisiana, 1915–1972 (Athens and London, 1995), p. 417
116. NAACP News, Feb. 1967, in NAACP papers, group IV box J11, folder ‘Printed matter - west coast regional office newsletters, 1966-April, 1967’, Library of Congress.
117. See letter from William B. Hixon, Jr., to the New York Times, dated 10 Apr. 1967
118. reprinted in Dr Martin Luther King, Dr John C. Bennett, Dr Henry Steele Commager, Rabbi Abraham Heschel speak on the war in Vietnam - with an introduction by Dr Reinhold Neibuhr, p. 29
119. Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954–1970, Part 4: Records of the Program Department (microfilm edition), editorial adviser Cynthia P. Lewis (University Publications of America, 1995), reel 26, series VII, records of the Peace Education Project, 1966–7 cont., box 176, folder 8 ‘Vietnam summer, 1967–1968’, Library of Congress.
120. See Leon D. Pamphile, ‘The NAACP and the American occupation of Haiti’, Phylon, 47 no. 1 (1986)
121. David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, biography of a race, 1868–1919 (New York, 1993), p. 522
122. Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising wind: black America and U.S. foreign affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill and London, 1996), pp. 40–51
123. Horne, Black and red, pp. 20, 21, and 26.
124. See letter from William B. Hixon, Jr, to the New York Times, dated 10 Apr. 1967, in SCLC records, part 4, reel 26, Library of Congress.
125. Quoted in ‘NAACP stand on colonialism and U.S. foreign policy’, Crisis, 62 no. 1 (Jan. 1955), p. 25.
126. See Berg, ‘Guns, butter and civil rights’, p. 220.
127. See also Berg, ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, p. 220, my emphasis.
128. ‘Wilkins raps King's civil rights policy’, Worcester Sunday Telegram, 19 Apr. 1967, NAACP papers, group IV box A86, folder ‘Vietnam correspondence, 1967–1968’, Library of Congress.
129. Dickerson, Militant mediator, pp. 270 and 271–3.
130. Militant mediator, pp. 273–274.
131. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 161.
132. Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 162. LBJ was referring to the recent appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the US Supreme Court.
133. Andrew Young, An easy burden: the civil rights movement and the transformation of America (New York, 1996), p. 431.
134. An easy burden: the civil rights movement and the transformation of America, p. 431
135. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 168.
136. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 162.
137. Whitney M. Young, Jr.
138. Dickerson, Militant mediator, pp. 278–279.
139. For example, after returning from observing the elections, the Johnson administration tried to involve Young in efforts to justify the war. He was sent a speech written by a presidential aid to help him gain a ‘better understanding of the Government's position and the steps that led to our present involvement in Vietnam’, see Dickerson, Militant mediator, p. 280.
140. See Joan Hoff, Nixon reconsidered (New York, 1994)
141. Dean J. Kotlowski, Nixon's civil rights: politics, principle, and policy (Cambridge, MA, 2002).
142. I. F. Stone's Weekly, 28 June 1965, p. 1
143. quoted in David Cochran, ‘I. F. Stone and the new left: protesting U.S. policy in Vietnam’, Historian, 53 (1991), p. 517.
144. See William R. Berkowitz, ‘The impact of anti-Vietnam demonstrations upon national public opinion and military indicators’, Social Science Research, 2 (1973)
145. E. M. Schreiber, ‘Anti-war demonstrations and American public opinion on the war in Vietnam’, British Journal of Sociology, 27 (1976)
146. Robert E. Lane and Michael Lerner, ‘Why hard-hats hate hairs’, Psychology Today (New York) (Nov. 1970), p. 45.
147. Francine de Plessix Gray, ‘The moratorium and the new mobe’, New Yorker, 3 Jan. 1970.
148. Sam Brown, ‘The politics of peace’, Washington Monthly, 2 (1970), pp. 26 and 44.
149. Washington Monthly, p. 25.
150. Washington Monthly, p. 45.
151. Dickerson, Militant mediator, p. 282.
152. Militant mediator, p. 281.
153. Weiss, Whitney M. Young, Jr., p. 194.
154. Whitney M. Young, Jr.
155. NAACP annual report, 1969, p. 147.
156. NAACP annual report, p. 155.
157. At its June 1970 convention, NAACP chairman Bishop Stephen Spottswood had declared that ‘this is the first time since 1920 that the national administration has made it a matter of calculated policy to work against the needs and aspirations of the largest minority of its citizens’. See ‘NAACP sternly critical of Nixon administration’, Guardian, 11 July 1970, p. 4.
158. NAACP papers, group VI, box C174, folder ‘Branch development, newsletters, New York, 1969’, Advance, 7 no. 50 (1969), Greenwich Village-Chelsea branch, p. 4-‘President's corner’, Library of Congress.
159. Roy Wilkins, ‘LBJ's programs would aid negro’, Detroit News, 26 Aug. 1967, office files of Frederick Panzer, box 331, folder - civil rights 1967–8, LBJ.
160. ‘Vietpoint’, Guardian, 7 Feb. 1970, p. 10.
161. Tom Wells, The war within: America's battle over Vietnam (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1994), p. 70.
162. SNCC statement on the Vietnam War, 6 Jan. 1966, in Teodori, The new left, pp. 251–252
163. ‘Wilkins raps King's civil rights policy’, Worcester Sunday Telegram, 19 Apr. 1967; NAACP papers, group IV box A86, folder ‘Vietnam correspondence, 1967–1968’, Library of Congress.
164. Cook, Sweet land of liberty?, p. 176.
165. Manfred Berg shares this assessment - see ‘Guns, butter, and civil rights’, pp. 213–214.