My reaction to the NAACP organization was inspirational and educational. Personally I did not have a lot of prior knowledge of the NAACP organization before this assignment besides for knowing that they advocate for justice amongst the minority populations. I was able to personally relate to the local, state, and national practices of this organization. I currently live in Kankakee County, and President Theodis Pace invited me to attend monthly meetings and participate in activities. As a social worker, I stand by social justice and the NAACP has strived to accomplish social justice for all. Some of those efforts are the anti-lynching bill, and the Voting Rights Act. The values and purposes of the efforts correlate with social justice and equality …show more content…
for human rights. I feel the NAACP has been victorious over many inequalities, and with the society changes over the years they are even more successful. When society changes the NAACP organization also changes which allows for them to stay active with the times, and still capable of fighting for any inequalities. Racism and discrimination have influenced society throughout times in different shapes and forms. The NAACP local, state, and federal levels need to stay active, productive, and knowledgeable about current events. Feelings towards this activity My feelings towards the NAACP organization activity was inspiring and educational.
I did not realize that the NAACP organization were so involved on the local, state, and national level. President Theodis Pace made me personally feel welcomed and opened to express my personal thoughts, desires, and feelings. This activity gave me an opportunity to realize how much impact the Kankakee County Branch 3035 of the NAACP has on the entire community. With some of the data shared by President Theodis Pace made me feel unaware of the injustices that minorities are currently facing in our communities. In addition, President Theodis Pace invited Paris Williams and myself to attend monthly meetings and events. The history of the NAACP organization has shown many inequalities that minorities have had to endear throughout history, but this organization has stood up for their beliefs on equality for all Americans. I personally did feel overwhelmed by this activity because the paper was due very early in the semester. As a student I did struggle finding a policy organization, setting up an interview, attending the interview, and then writing a …show more content…
paper. Developing skills When looking at key skills to develop to increase my effectiveness in advocacy include: knowledge and policy writing.
By gaining more knowledge on historical events, social work courses, current events, resources offered on a local, state, and federal level, and organizations in the community. Personally after living in Will County and Kankakee County there is a need for organizations like the NAACP to amend all the inequalities. I actually was unaware that Kankakee County had their own branch of the NAACP, and how involved this organization is within the community. The Kankakee County Branch 3035 of the NAACP has overcome many obstacles, and still continue to strive towards a world with equality. During the meeting with President Theodis Pace allowed me the opportunity to become aware of social injustices that Kankakee County is currently facing. In addition, the websites are easy to access with a lot of information regarding current events and historical events of the NAACP on all
levels. Steps for further interactions with the NAACP If I was to work with the NAACP in the future, I would definitely make it more accessible to the public. The websites, flyers, and meetings offer a lot of information for their NAACP members. If you are not a member there is limited amount of information offered to the entire community. I personally can imagine using their services because my son and daughter are both Caucasian and African American. I would support the NAACP by bringing more awareness to the community about concerns that are impacting the minority population; this correlates with the NASW (National Association of Social Work) Code of Ethics. The NASW and the NAACP both seek for social justice, and being a social worker I can relate to help having equalities for all Americans.
Over the course of five chapters, the author uses a number of sources, both primary and secondary, to show how the National Negro Congress employed numerous political strategies, and allying itself with multiple organizations and groups across the country to implement a nationwide grassroots effort for taking down Jim Crow laws. Even though the National Negro Congress was unsuccessful in ending Jim Crow, it was this movement that would aide in eventually leading to its end years later.
The Brown & Black Presidential Forum. (2014). Panel Members. Retrieved February 26, 2014, from http://www.bbpresforum.org/panel.html
How and why were the NAACP and the National Urban League more than civil rights organisations? Consider the period up to 1930.
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
When it all comes down to it, one of the greatest intellectual battles U.S. history was the legendary disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. This intellectual debate sparked the interest of the Northerners as well as the racist whites that occupied the south. This debate was simply about how the blacks, who just gained freedom from slavery, should exist in America with the white majority. Even though Washington and DuBois stood on opposite sides of the fence they both agreed on one thing, that it was a time for a change in the treatment of African Americans. I chose his topic to write about because I strongly agree with both of the men’s ideas but there is some things about their views that I don’t agree with. Their ideas and views are the things that will be addressed in this essay.
When talking about the history of African-Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, two notable names cannot be left out; Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. They were both African-American leaders in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, fighting for social justice, education and civil rights for slaves, and both stressed education. This was a time when blacks were segregated and discriminated against. Both these men had a vision to free blacks from this oppression. While they came from different backgrounds, Washington coming from a plantation in Virginia where he was a slave, and Du Bois coming from a free home in Massachusetts, they both experienced the heavy oppression blacks were under in this Post-Civil War society. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were both pioneers in striving to obtain equality for blacks, yet their ways of achieving this equality were completely different. W.E.B Du Bois is the more celebrated figure today since he had the better method because it didn’t give the whites any power, and his method was intended to achieve a more noble goal than Washington’s.
From slavery being legal, to its abolishment and the Civil Rights Movement, to where we are now in today’s integrated society, it would seem only obvious that this country has made big steps in the adoption of African Americans into American society. However, writers W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin who have lived and documented in between this timeline of events bringing different perspectives to the surface. Du Bois first introduced an idea that Baldwin would later expand, but both authors’ works provide insight to the underlying problem: even though the law has made African Americans equal, the people still have not.
All hail to the to the NAACP- making sure equality is enforced, and social injustice does not prevail. “Founded in 1909 in New York, by a group of black and white citizens in order to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of minority group citizens of the United States and eliminate racial prejudice. The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic process.” (www.NAACP.org)
Although the conclusion of the Civil War during the mid-1860s demolished the official practice of slavery, the oppression and exploitation of African Americans has continued. Although the rights and opportunities of African Americans were greatly improved during Reconstruction, cases such a 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson, which served as the legal basis for segregation, continue to diminish the recognized humanity of African Americans as equal people. Furthermore, the practice of the sharecropping system impoverished unemployed African Americans, recreating slavery. As economic and social conditions worsened, the civil rights movement began to emerge as the oppressed responded to their conditions, searching for equality and protected citizenship.With such goals in mind, associations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which came to the legal defense of African Americans and aided the march for civil rights reforms, emerged. By working against the laws restricting African Americans, the NAACP saw progress with the winning of cases like Brown v. Board of Education, which allowed the integration of public schools after its passing in 1954 and 1955. In the years following the reform instituted by the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the fervor of the civil rights movement increased; mass nonviolent protests against the unfair treatment of blacks became more frequent. New leaders, such as Martin Luther King, manifested themselves. The civil rights activists thus found themselves searching for the “noble dream” unconsciously conceived by the democratic ideals of the Founding Fathers to be instilled.
The time has come again to celebrate the achievements of all black men and women who have chipped in to form the Black society. There are television programs about the African Queens and Kings who never set sail for America, but are acknowledged as the pillars of our identity. In addition, our black school children finally get to hear about the history of their ancestors instead of hearing about Columbus and the founding of America. The great founding of America briefly includes the slavery period and the Antebellum south, but readily excludes both black men and women, such as George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, and Mary Bethune. These men and women have contributed greatly to American society. However, many of us only know brief histories regarding these excellent black men and women, because many of our teachers have posters with brief synopses describing the achievements of such men and women. The Black students at this University need to realize that the accomplishments of African Americans cannot be limited to one month per year, but should be recognized everyday of every year both in our schools and in our homes.
To wrap it up, African Americans lived an unfair past in the south, such as Alabama, during the 1930s because of discrimination and the misleading thoughts towards them. The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws and the way they were generally treated in southern states all exemplify this merciless time period of the behavior towards them. They were not given the same respect, impression, and prospect as the rest of the citizens of America, and instead they were tortured. Therefore, one group should be never singled out and should be given the same first intuition as the rest of the people, and should never be judged by color, but instead by character.
Nearly three centuries ago, black men and women from Africa were brought to America and put into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any other country that had practiced slavery. African Americans didn’t gain their freedom until after the Civil War, nearly one-hundred years later. Even though African Americans were freed and the constitution was amended to guarantee racial equality, they were still not treated the same as whites and were thought of as second class citizens. One man had the right idea on how to change America, Martin Luther King Jr. had the best philosophy for advancing civil rights, he preached nonviolence to express the need for change in America and he united both African Americans and whites together to fight for economic and social equality.
Diversity, we define this term today as one of our nation’s most dynamic characteristics in American history. The United States thrives through the means of diversity. However, diversity has not always been a positive component in America; in fact, it took many years for our nation to become accustomed to this broad variety of mixed cultures and social groups. One of the leading groups that were most commonly affected by this, were African American citizens, who were victimized because of their color and race. It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s during the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place yet, it is the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools. Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...
... and sought after. This would allow not only for the overall attention needed, but conveying of the overall relevance with the showcasing of the changed priorities for the public. This would allow for the communication of information to the masses while allowing for the NAACP to be on the proactive side enabling them to limit negative media attention.