Roy Wilkins, American Civil Rights Leader

Roy Wilkins, American Civil Rights Leader

Entitled: " Interview: Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP." Roy Wilkins (August 30, 1901 - September 8, 1981) was a prominent American civil rights activist. From 1931-34, he was assistant NAACP secretary under Walter Francis White. When W. E. B. Du Bois left the organization in 1934, he replaced him as editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. In 1955, Wilkins was chosen to be the executive secretary of the NAACP and in 1964 he became its executive director. He believed in achieving reform by legislative means, testified before many Congressional hearings and conferred with Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Wilkins strongly opposed militancy in the movement for civil rights as represented by the "black power" movement. He was a strong critic of racism in any form regardless of its creed, color or political motivation, and also declared that violence and racial separation of blacks and whites were not the answer. During his tenure, the NAACP played a pivotal role in leading the Civil Rights movement and spearheaded the efforts that led to civil rights victories; Brown v. Board of Education, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Voting Rights Act of 1965. He died in 1981 at the age of 80. Photographed by Warren K. Leffler April 5, 1963.

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