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A Pictorial Biography: Clarence Mitchell Jr.

The 1950's

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Dr. Channing Tobias, chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors, reading a statement welcoming the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court in the Brown v. Board of Education case. Seated, left to right, are Walter White, executive secretary, Arthur Spingarn, president of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, special counsel, who led the law suit, Robert Carter, one of Marshall’s assistants, and Dr. Ralph Bunche, a member of the NAACP board.
Mitchell and Juanita attend Atlanta Southwide Conference that Thurgood Marshall called regarding the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Posing outside the Wheat Street Baptist Church (left to right, back row) are Dr. A.H. McCoy (“give me liberty or give me death”) of Jackson, Mississippi; A.P. Tureaud of New Orleans, Louisiana;Dr. A.M. Mackel, of Natchez, Mississippi; Carsie Hall of Jackson, Mississippi; and Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary in Mississippi; (second row) Bernard Brown, St. Louis, Missouri, Juanita and Mitchell; John Wesley Dobbs, Atlanta; (front row) J.A. Brown of Charleston, South Carolina; Robert Sanders of Florida; and Kelly Alexander of Charlotte, North Carolina. In a newspaper article on the meeting, Juanita noted that the four leaders from Mississippi were targeted for death. “How would you like to open the daily paper as you sip the morning cup of coffee preliminary to the day’s work and find your name facing you in the bold black headlines that call you a ‘trouble maker,’ ‘strife-monger,’ ‘a menace to the peace of the community?’” she wrote. She explained that Dr. McCoy, president of the Mississippi State Conference of NAACP Branches, had boldly called a meeting to memorialize the Rev. G.W. Lee of Belzoni who had been murdered because he sought the right to vote. It was then that he spurred his listeners to bravery by declaring, “give me liberty or give me death,” she said. Even though Evers was the white supremacists’ number one target, she wrote, he continued his “death defying job” as field secretary.
Mrs. Lillie May Jackson, Mitchell's mother-in-law and president of the Baltimore NAACP Branch since 1935, addressing a banquet in Baltimore. Seated next to her are Dr. Carl Murphy, publisher of the newspaper Afro-American, and Walter F. White, NAACP executive secretary. Donald Gaines Murray, whose successful lawsuit desegregated the University of Maryland Law School is standing close to Jackson. Jackson and her daughter, Juanita Jackson Mitchell--the first Black woman to pass the Maryland Bar and subsequently president of the Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches--desegregated all of Maryland.
Roy Wilkins (left), NAACP executive secretary, and Thurgood Marshall, NAACP special counsel, with Autherine Lucy, whom they were representing in her attempt to desegregate the University of Alabama. Southerners in 1956 accused the NAACP of being subversive, of attempting to divide the nation, and of aiming at “mongrelization” of the races. More moderate critics accused the NAACP of moving too fast in an effort to end segregation. Wilkins denied the attacks. He countered that, contrary to attempting to move too fast, the desegregation efforts had been going on for years, at a very slow pace. He said: “We’re being pictured as extremists. We’re being equated unfairly with the White Citizens’ Councils despite the fact that we are proceeding within the law, which is as slow as a snail, but the councils aren’t.” He added that the NAACP recognized the difficulties and had not asked for federal troops to enforce the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision. It would be very glad to discuss the problems with responsible groups of white southerners, he said. (AP news photo)
The filibuster, which southerners used to talk a bill to death, had been the major obstacle to the passage of civil rights legislation since the early 1920s. Senators, in a 1957 strategy session, seeking to change the rules to make it easier to curb filibusters are (seated): Clinton Anderson (D., NM), Irving Ives (R., NY), and H. Alexander Smith (R., NJ); (standing) Clifford Case (R., NJ), Frederick Payne (R., Maine); Prescott Bush (R., Conn); Hubert Humphrey (D., Minn); and Thomas Kuchel (R., Calif). Anderson was floor leader of the group, who represented the bipartisan committee Mitchell had created this bipartisan committee as well as another in the House to lead the fight for civil rights legislation. (Wide World Photos)
Roy Wilkins, NAACP executive secretary (2d. from left, sitting), speaking with A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Next to the right are the Rev. Tom Kilgore of the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles, and subsequently the Friendship Baptist Church in Harlem, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Wilkins had strongly criticized King for taking credit for the event. It was Randolph who had first called for the rally. Although he is not pictured, Mitchell played a key role in organizing the event.
Clarence Mitchell and Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (D., N. Y.) met with a delegation from Mississippi in Washington, D.C. on April 24, 1959. The delegation wished to address the need to strengthen the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Pictured are (from left) attorney William E. Caldwell, Mrs. Petrella Barnes and her husband, the Reverend John M. Barnes of Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Powell; Charles Ray Darden, president of the Mississippi State Conference of NAACP Branches; unknown; and Clarence Mitchell.