As Americans struggle with the issue of race, the loss of freedoms, the deportation of Black and Brown people, and, to put a cherry on top of the cake, sometimes European Americans with dark skin are deported or held in a holding space.
When I think of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), I think of the 1950s; I think of my childhood and my mother, Mrs. Mattie Sue Free-Williams, the wife of my papa, Mr. Tampa (Willie) Williams, Sr.; they were lifetime members of the NAACP. My little brother and I could overhear our parents talking at night about the 1954 Supreme Court decision that racial segregation inflicted psychological harm on Black children. The ruling was indeed a critical and historic moment in American history.
In 1955, Mama and Daddy whispered in the night about the murder of little Emmett Till, in Money, Mississippi, an hour-and-a-half drive from my hometown. Following the Emmett Till assassination in 1954, the South reeled again when the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. In 1962, the University of Mississippi was integrated when a young Black Mississippian, James Meredith, entered and walked through the halls of the school’s lyceum. The University of Mississippi, located in Oxford, is home to the Ole Miss Rebels and the great author William Faulkner. It had been many moons since the South had been “All Shook Up.” The Magnolia State was again hanging off a “hill,” and a decisive win would have blown her over the edge.
In twentieth-century America, the struggle for Black Americans’ citizenship was led by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a group of young lawyers who challenged the Constitution. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling was a key accomplishment of 20th-century Americans. Guided by a group of young, gifted, and Black lawyers, led by the Honorable Thurgood Marshall, the country’s first Supreme Court Justice of color, and the brilliant Constance Baker Motley, together they successfully argued the Brown v. Topeka, Kansas case. The ruling was, by all accounts, a trouble “Blow,” as these young legal minds took the words of the United States Constitution written by foreign settlers of European descent who drafted the Constitution and created a space now called America. Marshall and Baker-Motley used their written words to frame an argument that led to a winning victory for humanity. Black children, including me at the time I was 9 years old in Grade 5, were enrolled in the “Negro” separate-but-equal school system.
We, the people, grieve over the loss of legal protection; a loss of citizenship, affirmative action, fair housing, access to the ballot, censorship, civil rights, and now authoritarianism. And to add wood on a heated volcano, as race in America, we can’t go back in time. We must awake from the notion of “I Had a Dream.” The NAACP is still on the battlefield fighting.
The question is, as Dr. King titled his essays, “Where Do We Go From Here?” With all things considered, will it be the NAACP that again seize the occasion to fight for fundamental human rights and the whole of protected civil rights? Or are we going to stay in the “dream”?
As Black Americans, we are at our very best in these inhumane political and morally deprived questionable storms. We are called upon to be ready for any challenges that alter our well-being.
We must not allow social media to be our learning platform; we must take to reading again–online media, newspapers, great authors like James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, Ralph Ellison, Elie Wiesel; the great historians and scholars, such as the late and acclaimed historians Dr. John Franklin Hope, C. Vann Woodward, and the critically acclaimed sociologist E. Franklin Frazier; the Black Church–and, in so doing, recharge the energy required to hold our own during this storm. Unlike the storm of the 1960s, we were clear about who the antagonists were. As Southern Blacks, we were closest to the adversaries and knew them, at least individually; we knew most of them. In the 1960s, we could call the White House and talk with the Kennedys. In 21st-century America, who can we call for resolve? Unlike the ’60s, today’s political environment is more severe and openly hostile, dangerous, and contemptuous of human existence.
The NAACP’s Spokane chapter has remained loyal to its founders’ philosophy of advocating for the civil rights and equality of Black Americans. Its long history has been marked by its successes and efforts to ensure equality and legal protection under the law since the turn of the century. We, seasoned activists, can genuinely say that the NAACP is the only remaining Black civil rights organization in America; let’s ensure its continuation. Who stood up and are still standing–the organization is proud to say–it is named the National Association of Colored People.
Someone on a social media platform wrote that “Jim Crow is back.” I’ll argue that, since colonization of what is now America, race, or the color line, has been a continuous theme; in this setting, Jim Crow has been lurking in the wind and never relinquishing his grip. He has been lying in the cut, waiting for what he knew would be his opportunity to rise again–this time openly aggressive, more violent, and cruel. For two hundred and fifty years, the stain of Jim Crow has kept a grip on the American psyche.
Here, we are some sixty-one years later, and we are again fighting to maintain fundamental civil rights and any degree of human decency. This time, it is we, the people, who have lost all legal protections through various executive measures.
Reflecting on the work of the NAACP in Spokane, highlighted in the recent Freedom Fund Banquet, the event served as a crucial reminder that the NAACP “is not just a Black organization,” as Spokane NAACP leaders emphasize, but for everyone who believes in an inclusive society where equity is the rule. In a region that has faced its share of cultural insensitivities, this gathering provides a vital space for connection and a renewed sense of hope, living up to its reputation as a formidable force to be reckoned with. The gala was, without a doubt, a premier gathering of people committed to meaningful change.
We’re living in the moment of fierce urgency, and as such, this tradition of advocacy continues to inspire us all to do our part. In the city of Spokane, the leadership of the NAACP is still on the battlefield fighting for equal protection under what’s left of the laws that initially aimed to provide equal access under the law, protecting Black and Brown people’s rights to exist.
Terry Williams Buffington, MA, is a cultural anthropologist.