St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-12-01
Virginia Conference NAACP
Youth Peace and Unity
Up to Youth of World

Richmond, Va. Overflow audi
ences packed Coburn Hall audi
torium during the two-day session
of the 9Th annual NAACP Youth
Conference, held at Virginia Union
University, Nov. 1919. Among the
263 registered delegates were rep
resentatives from 10 college chap
tiers and Al youth councils. Inter
~acial groups at Sarah Lawrence
College, New Jersey College for
Women, Hunter College, Cincinnati
University and the Girls Friendly
Society were also represented.
The keynote address delivered
Friday night by DR.. Adam Clay
ton Powell, Jr., first Negro Con-
gresham of New York, emphasized
the Conference theme, Building for
Total Democracy. DR.. Powell
placed responsibility for forth
right victory, free from racial pref
udices, squarely upon the shoulders
of the New Negro and New White
man emerging now from the chaos
of disunity on the home front. He
told his youthful listeners, eve
stand tonight as a nation on the
verge of winning the war; Europe
and in the Pacific, and losing the
war on the home front. We are on
the verge of making history abroad.
Ways in the Pacific and Europe
are fast approaching. We can have
no V-Day in Europe and the Pacific
unless we have V-Day at home and
the guarantors of V-Day in Amer
lea are people like you. Regardless
of the sacrifices in Berlin and Tok-
70, if we here on the home front
are going to be equally victorious,
right and wrong must come face to
face, and right must triumph.
"The very war we are fighting is
the war of youth. A new world is
being born, and our task as Ne
groes who have been privileged to
get little more of higher educa-
ton, must be to go back to the
masses as witnesses to raise them
until they walk with the dignity of
free people. That is hard strug-
gle, for the odds are great. The
immovable object of American pref
udices has stood so long that it is
almost impregnable, but there is no
power that can stand against the
honest united power of the people.
"Until recently we have been an
over-organized group, organized to
die. What we want now is organi-
cation and unity to live. The hour
has arisen when there must be only
one loyalty, that is-loyalty to each
other standing together, thinking
together, fighting together, work.
ing together"
NAACP Must Lead Way
Citing detectives of the NAACP
in leading the way to new unity,
the new Congressman declared,
eve must fight not only for the
advancement of colored people but
for the advancement of the COM
mon people. We must fight the
problem for everyone who suffers
injustice. The world has realized
that no nation, race or class is
going to be able to exploit another
nation. The master race theory is
disappearing. In this, our lifetime,
it is possible to strike down any
individual, nation or race that tries
to exploit because of race, color or
class. There will come a dawn
when no nation will be able to ex-
plot another nation, and I believe
it is at hand.
eve made this a peoples war.
We will keep on fighting until we
build peoples world, and build a
government of the people, black
and white; for the people, PrOtes-
tant and Catholic; and by the peo-
pie, Jew and Gentle"
Speakers and discussion leaders