A Local Youth Council on a National Stage: Dallas NAACP
The NAACP was arguably the most significant coalition of activists during the Civil Rights movement, as they aided Black Americans in their fight for equality across the country. During the 1950s, the NAACP sought to employ successful, cohesive strategies to push back against discriminatory Jim Crow Laws. Specifically, they championed the effectiveness of nonviolent protests, through boycotts of public transportation or sit-ins at local restaurants. The NAACP engaged even the youngest members of society, as reflected with the actions of the Dallas Chapter Youth Council.
The pages from the 'Dallas Youth Council NAACP Scrapbook' reveal and reflect how local NAACP chapters played a role in the national Civil Rights effort. This scrapbook was found in the Juanita Jewel Shanks Craft Collection at the Dolphe Briscoe Center. As a prominent member of the Dallas NAACP, she spearheaded many youth initiatives. She most likely helped to assemble, display and archive this scrapbook to highlight the successes of different civil actions the youth council participated in throughout the year.
The end of the scrapbook details an incidence of police brutality against an African seminarian, Essin Essin, who was forcibly segregated by the police to the back of the bus, and when he misunderstood the direction of the police officer, he was violently assaulted.
The local council took initiative to raise public awareness of this incident, in an attempt to rally public support for Essin and the Civil Rights movement in general. By enraging the public, they hoped this would prevent further actions from occurring in the future. They sent letters to local churches, as seen in the example of the letter to the Highland Park Methodist Church. They also sent a letter to the Southern Regional Council, and according to the scrapbook, they even sent one to Billy Graham.
These letters detail this case of police brutality and attempt to mobilize the public in the Civil Rights movement. While most organizations simply reply to the Youth Council with a short letter detailing their support for the Civil Rights cause, they fail to participate in any direct action. However, the Youth Council was not necessarily seeking to enable direct action. After all, if they could at least sway public opinion by receiving the support of prominent local organizations, they could still consider that a success. After all, it allowed the Civil Rights movement to become more mainstream and socially acceptable.
Yet, the incident of Essin Essin remains lost in history. This incident did not gain as much national exposure or mobility as other cases of segregation, such as the Rosa Park's bus boycott in Montgomery, AL.
What makes this case different? Particularly, it is the involvement of youth. Rosa Parks was in her 40s at the time of the boycott. She could have been able to earn legitimacy quicker than a protest or boycott headed by a youth movement, partially due to her age. Another cause could have been the circumstances of the incident itself. Was it because the victim was not an American citizen, since he was an African, temporarily stationed in the United States to enroll in the seminary. Perhaps, this could have made the public feel less related to cause.
While the youth council's actions reflect the nation-wide goals of the NAACP as a whole, their involvement failed to gain as much national exposure without the aid of the National Council itself in raising awareness. The Montgomery Boycott was mainly allowed to become so well known due to the attempts to unify local chapters of the NAACP to unify their message on the national stage.
Youth NAACP chapters around the country engaged with the community in different ways. The Youth councils conducted anti-lynching demonstrations, campaigned for equal rights in education and employment realms, and challenged discrimination and segregation in public facilities. There were clashes between the youth council's desire to take direct action and the national office advice against it, and that this is where the crucial tensions laid. This could be why the Dallas Youth chapter highlighted its more peaceful approaches in the scrapbook, in order to show cohesiveness of strategy with the NAACP as a whole.