I want to describe two incidents where we were trying to persuade people to desegregate.
Okay.
Th first was the county school system. We first talked to the superintendent of schools, Dr. David Jenkins.
He said he was working on it. I pointed out that he had since 1954 to do it. That was when the Supreme Court, in its Brown versus Board of Ed decision, declared that segregated schools are inherently unequal.
I remember that.
And we talked with the school board.
But only two of the members were sympathetic to the idea of desegregation.
So what happened?
Unfortunately it wasn’t until the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed did some of these institutions begin to move. In education. Employment. Public accommodations.
We did have a better hearing at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
By that time I had become Vice President of our NAACP branch. And our President, Sam G., and I sat down with the head of the Academy — can’t remember his name — to discuss equal employment opportunities there.
A staff photographer took our picture.
You win some and you lose some.
And at least some more progress came out of the ’64 Civil Rights Act.