NAACP as relevant today as ever

When the Nashville NAACP chapter filed suit in federal court recently against the school board and its rezoning plan, the story wasn't just a local one but national news. It was also another in a long series of major court cases that have been part of the organization's distinguished 100-year history.

Unfortunately, the NAACP has been battling an image problem through much of this decade. Within some circles the feeling lingers that they are a relic of a past era, a group with a glittering legacy but one that has no relevance or meaning in today's techno-savvy, supposedly enlightened times. There's also the notion that young African-Americans can't relate to the NAACP and that there's nothing they can do to attract them.

While such events as the recent lawsuit and NAACP initiatives in other cities aiding open housing fights and struggles against economic disparities show the error in that thinking, an exhaustive new book by historian Patricia Sullivan should be must reading for everyone unfamiliar with the NAACP's history or current importance. Lift Every Voice — The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement (The New Press) documents every major case, key fight and landmark event in a century of war against injustice and oppression.

Sullivan looks at the life and times of both familiar figures like W.E.B. Du Bois and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as well as lesser known but equally important personalities like Mary White Ovington, Charles Houston and Ella Baker.

They also show how many times it wasn't the famous or celebrity types but just ordinary folks who rallied behind the NAACP to improve and change their lives. Sullivan traces how the organization evolved from a handful of concerned, courageous people into a national network with chapters in every state and a board of directors containing major players in every phase of American endeavor.

Her book details the key role Nashville institutions and individuals have played in NAACP history over the years, from the sit-ins that included Fisk and Tennessee State University students to strategy sessions held at Fisk's Race Relations Institute.

Investigations conducted by various Tennessee chapters into horrific incidents of brutality and violence in places like Brownsville, where the secretary of the NAACP in that chapter was found stabbed and battered in 1940, to a case in Fayette County in 1960 where blacks were evicted from their homes after they tried to register to vote.

Sullivan doesn't rely on emotion or rhetoric to make her case, even though the book has many strong personal testimonies of faith and courage. Instead, she recounts in detail the numerous court cases, the long periods of fact gathering and checking, the rallies, meetings and skull sessions that were all part of the work behind what became the Civil Rights Movement. In every instance the NAACP was the major force behind these things, though their role often was either misunderstood, mischaracterized or even uncredited by many news sources at the time.

Though it's not mentioned as part of her mission, there's little doubt that Sullivan not only wants to set the record straight regarding the NAACP's importance, but also wants to dispel the idea there's no longer any need for its existence. She includes a comprehensive look at many 21st century developments and situations that have required the NAACP's special skill set, resources and experience.

The notion that people in their 20s and 30s can't be helped by becoming part of the NAACP seems strange at best and laughable at worst after seeing some of the things discussed here that are anything but ancient history.

No organization is perfect, and the NAACP by its own admission has made some mistakes in personnel selection and policy decisions. But over its century-plus tenure, those have hardly been as important as the victories it has achieved and the legacy it has made as a group devoted to equality and justice.

The Nashville chapter is simply continuing on in the tradition of its predecessors, and those who question that should carefully read every page of Sullivan's vital Lift Every Voice.