Lehmann Paper

Test 2

Part A. On February 12th The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by a multiracial group of activists, who answered "The Call," in the New York City, NY. They initially called themselves the National Negro Committee. Founded in 1909 The NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has been active in its attempts to break legal ground and forge better opportunities for African Americans. At the beginning in 1909, some twenty persons met together in New York City for the purpose of utilizing the public interest in the Lincoln Centennial in behalf of African Americans. The history, function, purpose, and current activities of the organization is important.to work on behalf of the rights of colored people including Native Americans, African Americans and Jews. (Janken 2003)

It is true that the NAACP stands as one of the progressive movement in America's major victories against legal, and thus political, oppression. . Within a few weeks this number was enlarged to about fifty, one-third of whom were from other cities than New York. It is The nation's oldest civil rights organization that has changed America's history. Despite violence, intimidation and hostile government policies, the NAACP and its grass-roots membership persevered. One of the most famous members of the NAACP was Rosa Parks who is known for her courageous acts when she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus back in 1955.

The NAACP's headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional regional offices in California, New York, Michigan, Missouri, Georgia, and Texas. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in the states included in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.(Gamber 61)

The NAACP's mission was to promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for the children, employment according to their ability and complete equality before law. In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt, and the dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis.However, in the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch a major get-out-the-vote offensive in the presidential elections NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including E.D. Nixon, its local president, and Rosa Parks, who had served as the chapter's Secretary, helped organize the bus boycott to protest segregation on the city's buses when two-thirds of the riders were black.

Part B.

Lemann discusses the life of George Hicks; native of Clarksdale who eventually works his way to the upper-middle class society of Chicago. George's childhood was ingrained in Clarksdale's southern style of harsh plantation life. He and his fellow black citizens were harassed and even arrested for fabricated charges. George himself was beleaguered by police officers for no legitimate reason and his uncle was put in jail for failing to step off a sidewalk while a fellow police officer passed. However, Hicks was ambitious and motivated to persevere to a life far away from that of the underclass black society. He was fortunate to move out of Clarksdale, attend university and maintain a stable job as a teacher away from the plantation life.

George's big break came when he was able to acquire employment with the Chicago Housing Authority. This was George's real chance to work his way into higher society. As years passed and George was finally appointed manager of a housing project, the life inside these communities had changed drastically. No longer were the homes filled with applicants who had been intensely screened. The facility had transformed into a project or a "ghetto" for the lower class black society. The projects which once were once intimate and competitive to occupy were now vast structures that were inhabited by hundreds. While manager at Wells Homes, George recognized people within the communities from his past, in Clarksdale however made no effort to connect with these people. Not only did he not attempt to form relationships with his occupants but completely lacked awareness and concern for their problems. That's where I believe I would have done things differently, if I were George I would have paid

attention to my tenants and attempted to create relationships within estate. His tenants began organizing protests against the conditions of there homes which had "broken windows, balky elevators, and unreliable heating" (Lemann, 275). Hicks did not resolve these issues and in fact did as little as necessary to keep higher executives from expressing concern.

George worked everyday within the disadvantaged black community as a quasi- representative to the government, providing a bureaucratic social service. However, George clearly made a distinction between his life and the life of those within the disadvantaged community which he was once a part of. "George had wound up making his living serving the black poor simply because that was the best career option to him, and he felt bad for them, but he knew that their fundamental problems were far beyond his ability to solve" (Lemann, 275). George faced a unique problem unlike most of the African American's interviewed by Lemann. George was an advantaged black who fled his community of strife and