KEEP MOVING'

...It was at a mass meeting held on the second night of the convention that the sentiment of the rank and file membership emerged most clearly as a possible indication of where the NAACP—and the bulk of Negro Americans—are going from here...

...But as a group they represented 300,000 Americans whose demand is clearer and simpler than that of almost any other organized group: to be granted the full rights of American citizenship...

...if you can't walk, crawl, but by all means keep movingl...

...It wasn't the Republicans...

...Youthful, undistinguished looking, speaking in a subdued eastern-accented voice which occasionally trembled with emotion, he was clearly the symbol of an idea which has captured the imagination of a people struggling for their rights...

...As individuals the delegates were as assorted as any segment of the population...

...The idea itself is not new, but combined with the tenor of the times and with the example of 50,000 Montgomery Negroes actively providing its strength, the concept has gained new power...

...At one workshop on public accommodations, a man from the South told of witnessing an automobile accident in which a Negro victim died on the road because when a "white" ambulance arrived the highway patrolman said, "Keep that nigger out of there...

...Because the objective is so simple, and seems so obviously justified to those who seek it, the demand carries with it a tremendous and uncompromising intensity...

...Yet they were meeting to form next year's policies and procedures for the Na-tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization which by dogged effort for 47 years has become a major influence on the domestic politics of the United States and consequently on the course of world affairs...

...An audience which listened with enthusiasm and respect to Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins, with a degree of awe to the scholarly, Grand Old Man of civil rights, A. Phillip Randolph, and with polite skepticism to political bids from Congressmen from both parties, obviously gave its heart to the Reverend Martin Luther King, leader of the Montgomery bus protest...

...Both parties have appealed for the Negro vote on the basis of their records in promoting civil rights...

...Certainly, judging by the 1956 convention, the base of NAACP activity is broadening...

...The Montgomery approach, while officially considered impractical on a large scale, may well lead to a new phase of the civil rights effort in which community action plays as great a part as the legal arm of the organization...

...The sentiment expressed by the Rev...

...It was this intensity that emerged as the strongest impression, almost as a physical sensation, when the convention delegates held their recent sessions...

...it was largely a businesslike, unemotional attempt to work out ways and means of achieving civil rights as rapidly as possible...

...This after a negatively peaceful era in which the Negro people were hypnotized into virtually accepting the myth of their own inequality...

...It was verbalized at the beginning in the keynote address by Thur-good Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, who received a spontaneous standing ovation when he rose to speak...

...Workshops on combatting discrimination in housing, employment, transportation and public accommodations were held every afternoon under the leadership of legal experts...

...The recurring theme was this: "the burden is on us, as Negroes...

...In this instance it acted like the removal of a stopper on feelings that had been seething for expression...

...If you can't fly, run...

...This was perhaps typical of the tone of the convention as a whole...

...But they rocked the huge auditorium with shouts and roaring applause when, from the same platform, fiery Franklin Williams, West Coast leader of the Association, introduced Autherine Lucy, Gus Courts, and other victims of Southern violence...

...The delegate was unemotional—he merely wanted information on the legal question involved so that he could aot through the courts...

...King could very well have been voiced by the convention as a whole...

...His principal appeal, judging by the overwhelming reaction of the audience, lay in his contention that the recent progress in civil rights has come from the awakening of the Negro himself to a realization of equality, and to a new sense of dignity and destiny...

...But there were no heroics about Mrs...

...train specifically for skilled jobs and apply for those jobs...

...There is no power under the sun that can move us either to the right or to the left," he said with deliberation...

...Above all, the message from Roy Wilkins on down, was that "nobody is going to give us anything—register and vote until our political strength makes it impossible to ignore our demands...

...Parks...

...Nightly mass meetings featured prominent speakers...

...The real work of the convention began at 8 a.m...

...We must keep moving...

...It was the NAACP...

...But, after five days of meetings marked by dispassionate, concentrated discussion, the intensity finally broke through in a burst of emotion which fairly shouted the fact that the effort to achieve civil rights might be slowed but never stopped...

...The NAACP, which almost exploded into existence in 1909 following the bloody Springfield race riot, has always been sensitive to the flow of events and skillful in capitalizing on them...

...With both parties cocking an eye toward the direction of the Negro vote in this year's election, it was Williams who stated most succinctly the overwhelmingly clear attitude of the NAACP membership...

...But where progress has been made, "It wasn't the Democrats," he shouted...

...become the best labor union members in order to have a voice in shaping union policies...

...Know our rights and don't stop until we get them...

...if you can't run, walk...

...Nor were there about the other 50 delegates from the Deep South...

...They gave him a warm reception...

...Williams, who has pleaded successfully before the Supreme Court, and who is frequently called upon to lecture to university students, also has the ability, more than any other NAACP leader, to switch to a visceral approach when necessary...

...Nearly 10,000 people from the surrounding area jammed into the convention hall on the final Sunday afternoon to hear a formal address by Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP...

...It seemed somewhat strange, at these sessions, to hear a routine area secretary's report delivered by Rosa Parks, a small attractive woman who was too tired and angry one day to give her seat on the bus to a white man, and thus brought the attention of the world to Montgomery, Alabama...

...It was spelled out in the policy resolutions which called for continuing and unceasing pressure on all fronts until segregation is entirely eliminated...

...With Thurgood Marshall and a score or so other nationally known NAACP leaders in attendance, the convention held to an exhausting pace for five days...

...Keep Moving' A Report on the NAACP Convention By RACHELLE MARSHALL THE 900 men and women who circulated through San Francisco's Civic Center during the last week in June did not look particularly like people who were making history...

...The cheer from the 10,000 was perhaps a fairly solid sample of the attitude of the Negro voter...

...with regional caucuses followed by long drawn out, often heated sessions in which details of internal organization were ironed out...

...The idea of a new self-revaluation, with its resultant powerful sense of personal worth and the inevitability of its recognition, seems irresistible...