"Our Fight is for Right": The NAACP Youth Councils and College Chapters' Crusade for Civil Rights, 1963-1965 by Tommy L. Bynum Under the Direction of Jacqueline A. Rouse ABSTRACT At the 26th Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1935, Juanita Jackson, special assistant to Walter White, challenged the Association to start a national youth movement. Aware of the impact of other youth movements, Jackson proposed that the NAACP rally its youth around the injustices that plagued their lives. In 1936, the NAACP’s National Board of Directors appointed Jackson as the first national youth director, and she, along with her successors, established a vibrant youth movement within the Association. Working within the scope of the Association’s national agenda, the youth councils and the college chapters staged anti-lynching demonstrations and campaigned for equal educational and employment opportunities and civil liberties. Indeed, the youth division gave young people a voice within the NAACP and harnessed their collective energy to fight against racial inequality. Although the history of black youth activism has long been overshadowed by the dominant narratives of youth in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the untold story of the NAACP youth movement reveals that grass-roots organizing and nonviolent direct action (much of what has been associated with CORE and SNCC student activists) were methods the youth councils and college chapters employed in the 1930s and 1940s. It was these tactics, which continued throughout the 1950s and 1960, that provided a framework for youth activism within CORE and SNCC. Focusing largely on the youth councils, this research examines the NAACP youth movement and its influence on youth activism, providing a fuller understanding of youth’s role in the fight for civil rights from 1936 to 1965. INDEX WORDS: Youth Councils, College Chapters, NAACP, Juanita Jackson, CORE, SNCC, Walter White

Thesis (M.A.) B.Y.U. Dept. of English. / Bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Jacqueline Rouse, committee chair; Glenn T. Eskew, Vicki Crawford, Patricia Sullivan, committee chairs. Electronic text (195 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 9, 2007; title from file title page. Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-195).

Since no writing is entirely objective, it is the contention of this thesis that Dr. Juanita Brooks and Dr. LeRoy R. Hafen, the most authoritative writers of the Southern Nevada and Southern Utah region, were greatly influenced in their writings by the folklore of the region and of the people. The two aspects of folklore which are most prominent in their writings are, first, those which treat the supernatural aspect of divine intervention, and, second, those which surround the struggle for survival.Folklore stories of divine intervention include the lore of divine aid given in time of great need, divine counsel presented as a guide, and divine healings obtained through the medium of the church. Both good and evil influences are manifest.Folklore stories of survival include the lore centered about the home, the land, the food, the medicinal supplies, etc. Both the folklore stories of divine intervention and the folklore stories of survival are influenced by the region from which they arise, and from the kind of people who live in the region.The Southern Nevada and Southern Utah region is comprised of desert land which depends upon a notionable river for irrigation water. The people who live there belong to a church which embraces very emotional precepts. Given, then, a land which has been difficult to conquer, and a people who have relied upon divine intervention in every emergency, and one has the basis for the background of Dr. Brooks and Dr. Hafen. They are so much a part of their own survival lore and their own need for divine intervention in time of crisis, that the folk stories which have grown up around these motifs either find their way into their writings, or, are closely associated with those which are included.

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