Roy Ottoway Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent activist in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was his leadership of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.& ...

(NAACP), in which he held the title of Executive Secretary from 1955 to 1963 and Executive Director from 1964 to 1977. Wilkins was a central figure in many notable marches of the civil rights movement. He made valuable contributions in the world of African-American literature, and his voice was used to further the efforts in the fight for equality. Wilkins' pursuit of social justice also touched the lives of veterans and active service members, through his awards and recognition of exemplary military personnel.

Early life

Wilkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 30, 1901. His father was not present for his birth, having fled the town in fear of being lynched after he refused demands to step away and yield the sidewalk to a white man. When he was four years old, his mother died from tuberculosis, and Wilkins and his siblings were then raised by an aunt and uncle in the Rondo Neighborhood of

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

, where they attended local schools. His nephew was

Roger Wilkins Roger Wood Wilkins (January 29, 1932 – March 26, 2017) was an American lawyer, civil rights leader, professor of history, and journalist who served as the 15th United States Assistant Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson from ...

. Wilkins graduated from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

with a degree in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

in 1923. In 1929, he married

social worker Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

Aminda "Minnie" Badeau; the couple had no children of their own, but they raised the two children of Hazel Wilkins-Colton, a writer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Early career

While attending college, Wilkins worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

at '' The Minnesota Daily'' and became editor of '' The Appeal'', an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

. After he graduated he became the editor of '' The Call'' in 1923. His confrontation of the Jim Crow Laws led to his activist work, and in 1931 he moved to New York City as assistant NAACP secretary under

Walter Francis White Walter Francis White (July 1, 1893 – March 21, 1955) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, 1929–1955, after joining the organi ...

. When

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...

left the organization in 1934, Wilkins replaced him as editor of ''

The Crisis ''The Crisis'' is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Mi ...

'', the official magazine of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&n ...

. From 1949 to 1950, Wilkins chaired the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization, which comprised more than 100 local and national groups. He served as an adviser to the War Department during World War II. In 1950, Wilkins—along with

A. Philip Randolph Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American led labor union. I ...

, founder of the

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway ...

, and

Arnold Aronson Arnold Aronson (March 11, 1911 – February 17, 1998) was a founder of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and served as its executive secretary from 1950 to 1980. In 1941 he worked with A. Philip Randolph to pressure President Franklin ...

, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council—founded the

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (The Leadership Conference), formerly called the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, is an umbrella group of American civil rights interest groups. Organizational history The Leadership C ...

(LCCR). LCCR has become the premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.

NAACP leadership

Roy Wilkins during an interview, April 5, 1963

In 1955, Wilkins was chosen to be the executive secretary of the NAACP and in 1964, he became its executive director. He had developed an excellent reputation as a spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement. One of his first actions was to provide support to civil rights activists in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

who were being subjected to a "credit squeeze" by members of the

White Citizens Councils The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash a ...

. Wilkins backed a proposal suggested by Dr. T. R. M. Howard of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, who headed the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, a leading civil rights organization in the state. Under the plan, black businesses and voluntary associations shifted their accounts to the black-owned Tri-State Bank of

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

. By the end of 1955, about $300,000 had been deposited in Tri-State for that purpose. The money enabled Tri-State to extend loans to credit-worthy blacks who were denied loans by white banks. Wilkins participated in the

March on Washington The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic righ ...

(August 1963), which he had helped organize. The march was dedicated to the idea of protesting through acts of nonviolence in which Wilkins was a firm believer. Wilkins also participated in the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

(1965) and the

March Against Fear The March Against Fear was a major 1966 demonstration in the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Activist James Meredith launched the event on June 5, 1966, intending to make a solitary walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi via ...

(1966). He believed in achieving reform by legislative means, testified before many Congressional hearings, and conferred with Presidents Kennedy,

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Those achievements gained Wilkins attention from government officials and other established politicians, earning him respect as well as the nickname, "Mr. Civil Rights". Wilkins strongly opposed militancy in the movement for civil rights as represented by the " black power" movement because of his support for nonviolence. He was a strong critic of racism in any form regardless of its creed, color, or political motivation, and he also declared that violence and racial separation of blacks and whites were not the answer. As late as 1962, Wilkins criticized the

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

methods of the

Freedom Riders Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions ''Morgan v. Virginia'' ...

, but changed his stance after the Birmingham campaign, and was arrested for leading a

picketing Picketing is a form of protest in which people (called pickets or picketers) congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place. Often, this is done in an attempt to dissuade others from going in (" crossing the pick ...

protest in 1963. On issues of segregation, as well, he was a proponent of systematic integration instead of radical desegregation. In a 1964 interview with

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the lit ...

for the book ''

Who Speaks for the Negro? ''Who Speaks for the Negro?'' is a 1965 book of interviews by Robert Penn Warren conducted with Civil Rights Movement activists. The book was reissued by Yale University Press in 2014. The Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderb ...

'', Wilkins declared, However, his moderate views increasingly brought him into conflict with younger, more militant black activists who saw him as an "

Uncle Tom Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, '' Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to prot ...

." Wilkins was also a member of

Omega Psi Phi Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African-American fraternity. The fraternity was founded on November 17, 1911, by three Howard University juniors Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper and Frank Coleman, and their faculty a ...

, a fraternity with a civil rights focus and one of the intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternities established for African Americans. Davis Wilkins Civil Rights March 1963

In 1964, he was awarded the

Spingarn Medal The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for an outstanding achievement by an African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) ...

by the

. During his tenure, the NAACP played a pivotal role in leading the nation into the Civil Rights Movement and spearheaded the efforts that led to significant civil rights victories, including Brown v. Board of Education, the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...

, and the

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights m ...

. In 1968, Wilkins also served as chair of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Human Rights. After turning 70 in 1971, he faced increased calls to step down as NAACP chief. In 1976, he fell into a dispute with undisclosed board members at the NAACP national convention in Memphis,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

. Although he had intended to retire that year, he decided to postpone it until 1977 because he thought that the pension plan offered to him by the NAACP was inadequate. Board member

Emmitt Douglas Emmitt is a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Surname *Drew Emmitt, musician * Fern Emmett (1896-1946), American actress *Jacob Emmitt, rugby league player for Wales, St. Helens, and Castleford Tigers *John Emmitt (1 ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

demanded that Wilkins disclose the offenders and not impugn the board as a whole. Wilkins merely said that the offenders had "vilified" his reputation and questioned his health and integrity. In 1977, at the age of 76, Wilkins finally retired from the NAACP and was succeeded by

Benjamin Hooks Benjamin Lawson Hooks (January 31, 1925 – April 15, 2010) was an American civil rights leader and government official. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advanceme ...

. Wilkins was honored with the title Director Emeritus of the NAACP in the same year. He died on September 8, 1981, in New York City, from heart problems related to a pacemaker implanted on him in 1979 because of his

irregular heartbeat Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...

. In 1982, his autobiography, ''Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins'', was published posthumously.

Views

Wilkins was a staunch liberal and proponent of American values during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

. He denounced suspected and actual communists within the Civil Rights Movement. He had been criticized by some on the left of the movement, such as Daisy Bates, Paul Robeson,

, Robert F. Williams, and

Fred Shuttlesworth Frederick Lee Shuttlesworth (born Fred Lee Robinson, March 18, 1922 – October 5, 2011) was a U.S. civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a co-founder ...

, for his cautious approach, suspicion of

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

organizations, and conciliatory attitude towards white anticommunism. In 1951,

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

and the US State Department, in collusion with the NAACP and Wilkins, who was then the editor of ''

'', the official magazine of the NAACP, arranged for a ghost-written leaflet to be printed and distributed in Africa.Foner, Henry. ''Paul Robeson: A Century of Greatness'', pp. 112–115. The purpose of the leaflet was to spread negative press and views about the black political radical and entertainer Paul Robeson throughout Africa. Roger P. Ross, a State Department public affairs officer working in Africa, issued three pages of detailed guidelines including the following instructions:Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, p. 396.

United States Information and Educational Exchange (USIE) in the Gold Coast, and I suspect everywhere else in Africa, badly needs a through-going, sympathetic and regretful but straight talking treatment of the whole Robeson episode... there's no way the Communists score on us more easily and more effectively out here, than on the US. Negro problem in general, and on the Robeson case in particular. And, answering the latter, we go a long way toward answering the former.

The finished article published by the NAACP was called ''Paul Robeson: Lost Shepherd'', and penned under the false name of "Robert Alan," who the NAACP claimed was a "well known New York journalist." Another article by Roy Wilkins, "Stalin's Greatest Defeat," denounced Robeson and the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Rev ...

in terms consistent with the FBI's information. At the time of Robeson's widely misquoted declaration at the Paris Peace Conference that blacks would not support the United States in a war against the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

because of the continued lynchings and their legal second-class citizen status after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Wilkins stated that regardless of the number of lynchings that then occurred or would occur, black Americans would always serve in the armed forces. Wilkins also threatened to cancel a charter of an NAACP youth group in 1952 if it did not cancel its planned Robeson concert.

Support for military

During the presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson, the Civil Rights Movement was in its peak. International affairs were somewhat overlooked by numerous members of the NAACP and other civil rights groups in order to focus on domestic issues in the United States. However, Wilkins stayed true to his liberal values and carried them to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

during his time with the NAACP. Wilkins's friendship and constant correspondence with Johnson gave him an even-larger platform to speak out on war efforts and policies affecting civil rights. His views towards the participation of black military members in the US military was a point of contention between him and other prominent civil rights leaders. While most civil rights groups and activists stayed quiet or spoke out against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, Wilkins focused on what African-Americans could gain out of serving in the military. An article posted in the Western Journal of Black Studies suggests that black troops were fighting for equality both in the United States as well as overseas. Wilkins emphasized the financial benefits of serving in the military along with the importance of African-American citizens participating in the first integrated American army. Wilkins's efforts to further equality in the realm of international affairs were publicly recognized in 1969, when he was awarded the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...

by Lyndon Johnson.

Death and legacy

Wilkins died on September 8, 1981, eight days after his 80th birthday in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, U.S. During his later life Wilkins was frequently referred to as the "Senior Statesman" of the Civil Rights Movement.Roy Wilkins
Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved from ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online 19 September 2009. In 1982, his autobiography ''Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins'' was published posthumously. The Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award was established in 1980 to recognize members of the Armed Forces who embodied the spirit of equality and human rights. The St. Paul Auditorium was renamed for Wilkins in 1985. The Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice was established at the

's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 1992.

Roy Wilkins Park Roy Wilkins Park, originally known as Southern Queens Park, is a park in the St. Albans neighborhood of southeastern Queens in New York City. It is located on an irregular plot of land bounded by 115th and 116th Avenues to the north, 175th Stre ...

St. Albans, Queens St. Albans is a residential neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered by Jamaica to the northwest, Hollis to the north, Queens Village to the northeast, Cambria Heights to the east, Laurelton ...

, New York was named after him as a unique public and cultural touchstone for all of New York City.

Gil Scott-Heron Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author, known primarily for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Ja ...

mentioned Wilkins in his spoken word song " The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with this lyric: "There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkins strolling through

Watts Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power. Watts may also refer to: People * Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters *Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful'' * Watts family, six cha ...

in a red, black and green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving for just the proper occasion."

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

stated, in his "Civil Rights Poem", that "if i ever see roywilkins ic.on the sidewalks imonna ic.stick half my sandal up his ass". In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 34 cent stamp honoring Wilkins. In 2002,

Molefi Kete Asante Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professor ...

listed Roy Wilkins on his list of the

100 Greatest African Americans ''100 Greatest African Americans'' is a biographical dictionary of one hundred historically great Black Americans (in alphabetical order; that is, they are not ranked), as assessed by Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante in 2002. A s ...

. He is played by Joe Morton in the 2016 television drama '' All the Way''.

References

Sources

* Yvonne Ryan, ''Roy Wilkins: The Quiet Revolutionary and the NAACP.'' Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2014. * Arvarh E. Strickland, "Roy Wilkins," American National Biography Online, February. 2000.

External links

Roy Wilkins in MNopedia, the Minnesota Encyclopedia

The Roy Wilkins Memorial
in

: a virtual tour.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Oral History Interview with Roy Wilkins, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
*
Roy Wilkins's FBI files
hosted at the Internet Archive * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkins, Roy 1901 births 1981 deaths African-American activists 20th-century American writers Activists for African-American civil rights African-American journalists American magazine editors Congressional Gold Medal recipients NAACP activists People from Saint Paul, Minnesota People from St. Louis Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Spingarn Medal winners University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni