Bill Text: PA HR114 | 2009-2010 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 33-9)

Status: (Passed) 2009-03-16 - Adopted [HR114 Detail]

Download: Pennsylvania-2009-HR114-Introduced.html

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PRINTER'S NO. 802
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE RESOLUTION
No. 114 Session of2009
INTRODUCED BY BROWN, JOHNSON, EACHUS, PAYTON, THOMAS, DeWEESE, PARKER, COHEN, KORTZ, YOUNGBLOOD, SANTARSIERO, WATERS, KIRKLAND, DRUCKER, WHEATLEY, LEVDANSKY, LONGIETTI, SCAVELLO, PETRI, McCALL, DONATUCCI, GINGRICH, QUINN, HELM, MELIO, SAINATO, GRUCELA, DiGIROLAMO, MURPHY, McGEEHAN, FRANKEL, SIPTROTH, BRENNAN, SHAPIRO, REICHLEY, FABRIZIO, PAYNE, CLYMER AND MAHONEY, MARCH 5, 2009
INTRODUCED AS NONCONTROVERSIAL RESOLUTION UNDER RULE 35, MARCH 5, 2009
A RESOLUTION
Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People.
WHEREAS, As the nation's oldest and largest civil rights
organization, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), initially known as the National Negro
Committee, was formed as a result of mob-incited race riots in
Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham Lincoln, during the
summer of 1908; and
WHEREAS, The accounts of atrocities committed against people
of color during this time and the Springfield riots led Mary
White Ovington to call for a conference to discuss ways of
achieving civil, political and social equality for African
Americans; and
WHEREAS, According to Ms. Ovington's 1914 accounting, the
NAACP "was born in a little room of a New York apartment" during
a meeting attended by herself and Oswald Garrison Villard, both
descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr.
Henry Moskowitz; and
WHEREAS, It was the intent of Ms. Ovington and Mr. Villard to
call for a campaign that would move the country to take
immediate action on racial injustice; and
WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln's birthday was chosen as the day to
issue the call because the founding members believed that "the
spirit of the abolitionists must be revived and that the Negro
must be treated on a plane of absolute political and social
equality"; and
WHEREAS, In addition to Ms. Ovington, Dr. Moskowitz and Mr.
Villard, the 1909 call was signed by a multiracial group of 60
people, seven of whom were African American, including Dr. W. E.
B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell; and
WHEREAS, Other signers included Jane Adams, Samuel Bowles,
Professor W. L. Bulkely, Harriet Stanton Blatch, E. H. Clement,
Kate H. Claghorn, Professor John Dewey, Mary E. Dreier, Dr. John
L. Elliott, William Lloyd Garrison, Reverend Francis J. Grimke,
William Dean Howells, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Reverend John Haynes
Holmes, Professor Thomas C. Hall, Hamilton Holt, Florence
Kelley, Reverend Frederick Lynch, Helen Marot, John E.
Milholland, Mary E. McDowell, Professor J. G. Merrill, Leonora
O'Riley, Reverend Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, Louis F. Post,
Reverend Dr. John P. Peters, Dr. Jane Robbins, Charles Edward
Russell, Joseph Smith, Anna Garlin Spencer, William M. Salter,
J. C. Phelps Stokes, Judge Wendell Stafford, Helen Stokes,
Lincoln Steffens, C. F. Thwing, Professor W. I. Thomas, Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise, Bishop Alexander Walters, Dr. William H. Ward,
Horace White, William English Walling, Lillian D. Wald, Dr. J.
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Milton Waldron, Mrs. Rodman Wharton, Susan P. Wharton, Mary E.
Wooley and Professor Charles Zuebin; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Villard, president of The New York Evening Post,
published the call on the centennial of the birth of Abraham
Lincoln; and
WHEREAS, The call asked "believers in democracy to join in a
national conference for the discussion of present evils, the
voicing of protests and the renewal of the struggle for civil
and political liberty"; and
WHEREAS, The call led to the first national conference of the
NAACP in New York City in May 1909 to which more than 1,000
people were invited; and
WHEREAS, The NAACP organized as a permanent body at its
second national conference which convened in New York City in
May 1910; and
WHEREAS, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, an African-American civil
rights activist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer,
editor, poet and scholar, was a founding member of the NAACP,
and from 1910 to 1934, he served as the director of publicity
and research, a member of the board of directors and editor of
The Crisis, the NAACP's monthly magazine; and
WHEREAS, The NAACP adopted the goal of Dr. DuBois' Niagara
Movement, which he and several other prominent African-American
scholars, professors and attorneys organized in 1905 to secure
the protection and rights guaranteed under the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution; and
WHEREAS, The growth of the NAACP was spearheaded by Joel
Spingarn, a founding member who helped develop the strategy of
legal advocacy to achieve social and political justice and who
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served as board chairman of the NAACP in 1915 and as its
president from 1929 to 1939; and
WHEREAS, Between 1917 and 1919, the membership of the NAACP
grew from 9,000 to nearly 90,000; and
WHEREAS, Civil rights activist, diplomat and poet, James
Weldon Johnson, became the first African-American secretary of
the NAACP in 1920, and Louis T. Wright, a surgeon, was the first
African-American chairperson appointed to the board of directors
in 1934; and
WHEREAS, Over the decades, the legal advocacy of the NAACP
enabled African Americans to be commissioned as officers in
World War I, resulted in the admission of African-American
students to the University of Maryland, led to a reversal of the
separate-but-equal doctrine that had governed access to public
accommodations since the United States Supreme Court's 1896
Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, ended state-sanctioned segregated
facilities in interstate travel by train and bus and, under the
leadership of Special Counsel Thurgood Marshall, eliminated
segregation in public schools with its victory in Brown v. the
Board of Education; and
WHEREAS, The NAACP used the media, the courts, the voting
booth, lobbying, political pressure and moral persuasion to
achieve its goals; and
WHEREAS, The activism and advocacy of the NAACP, among other
things, pressured the Federal Government to ban discrimination,
ensured a nondiscrimination policy in war-related industries and
Federal employment during World War II, ended segregated lunch
counters in more than 60 stores, caused the withdrawal or defeat
of certain nominees to the United States Supreme Court and
pushed television broadcasters to establish and institute
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workplace diversity; and
WHEREAS, The relentless political and legal efforts of the
NAACP led to the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Act, the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964 and 1968, the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, the Voting Rights Reauthorization and
Amendment Act of 2006 and the Fair Housing Act; and
WHEREAS, Past and present prominent members of the NAACP
include Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers,
Roy Wilkins, Benjamin L. Hooks, Representative John Conyers and
Julian Bond, all pioneers in the struggle for civil, political
and economic liberty; and
WHEREAS, After the human and moral devastation caused by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the NAACP established the Disaster
Relief Fund to help hurricane survivors in Mississippi, Florida,
Texas, Alabama and Louisiana rebuild their lives; and
WHEREAS, The current membership of the NAACP totals more than
500,000 nationwide; and
WHEREAS, Since its inception in 1909, the mission of the
NAACP has been to ensure political, educational, social and
economic equality for all persons and to eliminate racial
discrimination and segregation through the democratic process;
therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania commemorate the centennial of the
founding of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania honor and extend its appreciation
to the NAACP for its century-long commitment to justice and
equal protection under the law for all citizens of the United
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States.
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