HOWEVER spontaneous it may seem, the Negro revolution is guided by five civil organizations. Sometimes they work together, but the alliance is uneasy. They employ different strategy and tactics. And as the revolution gathers impetus, there is increasing rivalry—not only for recognized leadership but for the financial backing that it brings. The five top organizations, excluding the Black Muslims, who are not interested in civil rights:
THE N.A.A.C.P.: In the Courts
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has become the nation's biggest (400,000 members in 1,200 chapters), best-known civil rights organization. For years it fought the Negro's battles in the courts, achieved its greatest triumph in 1954 after its special counsel, Thurgood Marshall, now a federal appellate judge, successfully argued for the Supreme Court's historic school desegregation decision.
But to Negroes nowadays court action seems not nearly enough, and the N.A.A.C.P. is feeling the pressure. Last week able Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins complained publicly: "The other organizations furnish the noise and get the publicity while the N.A.A.C.P. furnishes the manpower and pays the bills. A good many things have not been made known to our membership. They have come to believe that we are standing on the sidelines working up legal cases while everybody else is participating in nonviolent direct action. We don't like to have people talking about us as if we were old and sitting in the corner knitting." As if to give weight to his words, Wilkins recently went to Jackson, Miss., deliberately got himself arrested as a civil rights demonstrator.
THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE: In the Community
The Urban League's executive director, Whitney Young Jr., is unwilling to follow Wilkins' example. "I do not see," he says, "why I should have to go to jail to prove my leadership." Founded in 1910 and mainly supported by white philanthropic funds (notably including the Rockefeller), the Urban League stresses community action, including job training and social welfare programs. The most "professional" of the organizations, the league, with its fulltime, salaried staffers, furnishes research and planning guidance to almost all the other groups.
With chapters in 65 cities, the Urban League seeks civil rights progress through biracial consultation and cooperation. For that reason it is sometimes accused of Uncle Tomism—but smart, tough Director Young, 42, is certainly no Uncle Tom. Educated at Kentucky State College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Minnesota, he was dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work when selected for his Urban League post. As soon as he assumed Urban League leadership, he stepped up the organization's pace. A veteran staffer protested: "We don't work this fast." Replied Young: "From now on, we will. We've got to, or we'll be left behind."