University of Virginia Library

Civil Rights Head To Speak

NAACP Leader Wilkins
To Lecture Legal Forum

Photo by Bachrach

Roy Wilkins Of NAACP

Called Black Power A "Reverse Hitler"

One of the major civil rights
leaders in the nation, Roy Wilkins,
will speak at the University
tonight at 8:30 in University Hall
(to which it was moved from the
chemistry auditorium.)

Mr. Wilkins, 66, is the executive
secretary of the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, a post he has
held since 1955, when he succeeded
Walter White.

He joined the staff of the
NAACP in 1931 as assistant
executive secretary. From 1934
to 1949, he was also editor of
the organization's monthly magazine,
The Crisis.

From 1949 to 1950, Mr. Wilkins
served as acting secretary
during Mr. White's leave of absence;
he was administrator from
1950 until his unanimous election
as executive secretary by the
board of directors.

Mr. Wilkins was born in St.
Louis, Mo., but he grew up in
St. Paul, Minn., where he lived
in a predominantly white neighborhood
and attended racially
integrated public schools. In
1923, he graduated from the University
of Minnesota, where he
majored in sociology.

After his graduation, he became
managing editor of the
Call, a weekly newspaper for
Negroes published in Kansas
City, Mo.; he held the post until
he joined the NAACP staff.

Shortly after he joined the
NAACP, Mr. Wilkins and
another young man went to
Mississippi posing as indigents
seeking work. Their purpose was
to investigate the working conditions
of Negro laborers. They discovered
that some Negro laborers
were being paid ten cents an
hour and were being required to
work 12 hours a day, seven days
a week.

His companion was discovered
and arrested, but Mr. Wilkins
returned to New York to write
"Mississippi River Slaves, 1932,"
which led to a congressional investigation.

Since then, Mr. Wilkins has
participated in numerous demonstrations
and has been arrested
twice while he was in picket lines.

Mr. Wilkins is a member of a
number of boards and governing
bodies of agencies serving the
field of human rights and is a
member of the President's National
Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders.

In March, 1967, Mr. Wilkins
received the Freedom House
award from President Johnson.

The NAACP has had an interracial
membership and corps
of directors officers and staff
since its founding in 1909. The
1966 membership was about 440,000,
located in 1700 branches
and youth groups in 50 states and
the District of Columbia.

Under Mr. Wilkins leadership,
the NAACP has criticized militant
black nationalist and black
power groups. U.S. News and
World Report has said that the
NAACP is regarded as one of
the most conservative rights organizations.

He has called black power a
"reverse Mississippi, a reverse
Hitler, a reverse Ku Klux Klan
. . . Black power means anti white
power. . .We of the
NAACP will have none of this."

Mr. Wilkins has also criticized
rioting and looting, saying it is
not the answer, that it is being
done by a few and the majority
of law-abiding Negroes should
not be blamed for it.

Thus extremists have criticized
the NAACP and have derided
Mr. Wilkins as an "Uncle Tom."
Last June, the attorney general
of New York announced that his
office had uncovered a plot by
the Revolutionary Action Movement-one
of the most extreme
Negro militant organizations-to
assassinate Mr. Wilkins and other
civil rights leaders.

His speech at the University
is being sponsored by the Student
Legal Forum and the University
Union. A spokesman for the
sponsors said yesterday Mr.
Wilkins will speak here unless
there was major rioting after the
funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther
King.