Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1958-03-22
The NAACP And The Right To Vote
For Mississippi Negro Citizens

IUI MISSISSIPPI NCSIO NlllACllS
The JACKSON ADVOCATE, and its Editor and
Publisher from its beginning back in September, 1899
single handed and while most of the vocal Negro
leaders and present day NAACP adherents stood back
and looked in askance and fear, started campaign
for the right of Negroes to VOTE and the need for po
cal participation by the intelligent Negro citizens of the
state
The campaign which started based on the
proposition of repeated and to which still hold that
no substantial progress be made from existing
dons in Mississippi either way the other, until
the intelligent Negro citizens of the state are able to
join with the intelligent white citizens of the state in vot
ing and political participation and thus together bring
about those conditions which will make the state better
place. place of greater opportunity for both it's Negro
and white citizens
In campaign brought about an increase in
the number of Negro voters the state from practic
ally nothing in 1889 to upwards of $4,000 by 1854 the
year to be remembered the year of the u S. Supreme
Court decision in the school Indignation promoted and
fostered by the NAACP.
Not only able to so increase the number of
Negro voters in the state but during the period from
1889, despite the open hostility at the beginning our
campaign resulted in complete change in public opn-
ion in the state regards Negro voting and political par
tcpaon and by 1854 before the school Indignation de-
cson there were few responsible of public opn-
ION and leadership in the state that had not conceded
that the time had come for the Mississippi Negro to
nave the right to vote and of political participation.
The campaign which we led and carried on during
the period mentioned which saw the organization of the
Mississippi Negro Democrats Association which brought
TO the campaign some outstanding leaders at the local
levels in various sections of the state carried on
without any aid advise, assistance of any kind from
the NAACP. Indeed until the late 1940s there was no
NAACP activity or membership in Mississippi of anv
consequence, and the national organization lacked both
the funds and the issues of its subsequent prominence
Beginning in the late 194O's, backed by the inter-
national we'll the national political circumstances
and in campaign for equality under the law the
NAACP by 1854 had moved into the dominating posi-
ton OF Negro leadership national prominence and in
tluence and secure in that position at least for the
moment despite warnings from some we'll informed
powerful and influential sources the NAACP moved
for" tboI Toe
palgn for racial negraton and thus in the matter of
voting and political participation for the Mississippi Ne
gro brought to an end the most hopeful period in Mis-
slssppi Negro history, the period from 1889 to 1854
Since the decision in the school segregation cases
promoted and fostered by the NAACP the legislature
has rewritten the registration law for the obvious
purpose of making it difficult for Negroes to regis
ter and qualify to vote. Worst of all there has been
complete reversal in public opinion in the state regard
ing the Negroes right to vote and political participation
from that which everywhere evident before the de-
mand for racial ntegraton
Down in Jefferson Davis County, where more than
1000 Negro voters registered and qualified the
period we mentioned, have been wiped from the poll
books, Negro Minister Rev. H. D. Darby, has filed
suit to set aside the recently enacted state voters quail
fication in law
If and when favorable decision is rendered in the
case In the face of existing public opinion far it
will benefit the rank and file of Negro voters in Jeffer
son Davis County it will be little than scrap of
judicial paper
There those in responsible position of leader
ship in the South well in other sections of the ma
ton who pointed out to the NAACP that to the
right to vote for the Negro in the South it's best
course and the best for the Negro but its leadership
for reasons known to perhaps only few people the
ton chose to demand immediate Indignation of the races
and thus succeeded in getting it's before the
In 1890, having been dsfranchised result of the
luminosity created by the presence of federal troops
ing the reconstruction era who had been sent to the
South at the nstence of misguided friends of the
southern Negro Negroes started filing suits to regain
the right vote until 1916 some Sc years
later before the right had been completely restored Hav
ing gotten it's cart before the horse of the opinion
that there is little the NAACP is going to be able to do
in the matterrof the right to vote for Negroes in Mis-
sisspp for long time to if ever for it's horse is
going to find increasingly difficult to forward while
walking backward.