Senate Resolution No. 511

BY: Senator PARKER

COMMEMORATING the 110th Anniversary of the
founding of the NAACP

WHEREAS, It is the custom of this Legislative Body to recognize and
pay tribute to those enduring organizations which devote their
purposeful energies to improving the quality and dignity of life of
those they serve, to preserving their heritage, and to fostering pride
among them; and

WHEREAS, Attendant to such concern, and in full accord with its
long-standing traditions, this Legislative Body is justly proud to
commemorate the 110th Anniversary of the founding of the NAACP; and

WHEREAS, On February 12, 2019, the NAACP will mark its 110th
Anniversary; the NAACP Headquarters, based in Baltimore, Maryland, along
with its 1,700 units nationwide, will host celebrations and observances
throughout the year that highlight the significant role the organization
has played in leading social change in America; and

WHEREAS, The oldest and largest civil rights organization, the NAACP
was founded in 1909, in New York City by a group of black and white
citizens committed to improving the quality of life for
African-Americans; and

WHEREAS, Among the early leaders of the NAACP was W.E.B. DuBois, who
helped establish the Niagara Movement in 1905; other early members
included Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimke, Henry Moskowitz, Mary White
Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard and William English Walling; and

WHEREAS, In its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the
courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial
discrimination; and

WHEREAS, Later, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil
rights litigation and the NAACP's Legal Department, headed by Charles
Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign to bring
about the reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine, culminating in
the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education that held that state-sponsored
segregation of elementary schools was unconstitutional; and

WHEREAS, Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full
desegregation throughout the South, highlighted by a bus boycott in
Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, to protest segregation on the city's buses
when two-thirds of the riders were black; and

WHEREAS, During the mid-1960s, the NAACP was an active part of the
Civil Rights Movement, helping to organize the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic
"I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln
Memorial; and

WHEREAS, That fall, President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights
bill to Congress before he was assassinated, and his successor,

President Lyndon B. Johnson, passed a civil rights bill aimed at ending
racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations
in 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for
protection of the franchise in places where voter turnout was
historically low; and

WHEREAS, Today, the NAACP continues to fulfill its mission to ensure
the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of
all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination; it
has over 500,000 members, 1,700 branch chapters and 450 college and
youth chapters; and

WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body that when
organizations of such noble aims and accomplishments are brought to our
attention, they should be celebrated and recognized by all the citizens
of the great State of New York; and

WHEREAS, It is with great pleasure that this Legislative Body
commends the NAACP for its excellence and for its commitment and
contributions to the community it has so ably served for the past 110
years; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
commemorate the 110th Anniversary of the founding of the NAACP, fully
confident that it will continue to give positive definition to the
profile and disposition of the communities of this great State and
Nation.