Roy Wilkins: “The Clock Will Not Be Turned Back”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Unsurprisingly, during the fall of 1957 the crisis at Central High occupied a good deal of Wilkins’s time and energy. Speaking in Georgia on September 23, for example, the NAACP chief condemned Faubus’s actions and the “shameful spectacle” that had occurred in Little Rock. On October 11, in a keynote speech to the North Carolina NAACP state convention, Wilkins spoke at length on the Little Rock crisis, highlighting themes to which he would return in his Commonwealth Club speech, and on November 3 he addressed two thousand five hundred civil rights supporters at a New York City rally held to show support for the Little Rock Nine. Interestingly, Wilkins was not the first speaker to address the Commonwealth Club on the Little Rock crisis. On October 4, Mississippi judge Tom P. Brady, a staunch segregationist and leader of the Citizens’ Council movement, had delivered a speech to the club in which he defended segregated schooling and denounced the Brown decision.

At the outset of his own speech, Wilkins seeks to create a sense of drama by arguing that white southerners’ defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court over the question of school desegregation constitutes the gravest of crises. He then goes on to describe how in Little Rock angry mobs had assailed young black children––beating, kicking, and spitting at them––simply because they were attempting to attend school. Wilkins claims that the media coverage of these events had brought home to millions of Americans the “ugly” reality of what was happening in the South. But Wilkins was also keen to emphasize that Little Rock was not simply a domestic issue but, indeed, an international crisis—one that imperiled America’s prestige and standing abroad.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s the United States and the Soviet Union became embroiled in the cold war. Adopting the role of “leader of the free world,” America and its allies sought to contain Soviet influence, resist the expansion of Communism, and promote democracy. The American government was particularly keen to win over countries in Africa and Asia that were emerging from European colonialism. Yet, as Wilkins points out, the existence of segregation in the American South was an international embarrassment for the United States and an obstacle to its cold war mission. Indeed, incidents such as the violence at Little Rock were seized upon by the Soviet Union as evidence of America’s hypocrisy and made it more difficult for the United States to win the support of newly independent nonwhite nations. Desegregation was not simply a moral or legal issue, then––it was also a matter of national security. And Wilkins is uncompromising in his use of language––he accuses white segregationists of undermining America’s international leadership by stabbing the nation in the back and thus weakening the forces of democracy. Wilkins was not alone in seeking to place the struggle for black rights within the wider international context. Numerous civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed that segregation and the denial of black voting rights in the South undermined America’s cold war leadership and argued that government action on civil rights would strengthen the nation’s democratic credentials.

Wilkins is also keen to point out that education itself is of vital national importance; he argues that America needs all of its citizens, black as well as white, to achieve their full potential to help defeat the Communist threat. Segregation is, says Wilkins, a source of division that saps the nation’s strength and leaves it vulnerable in the face of Soviet advances in science and technology. Indeed, Wilkins speaks of the shadow cast by Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. When it was launched by the USSR in early October 1957, it had shocked the U.S. public, sparking alarm that the nation was falling behind the Russians. The NAACP chief again raises the stakes, claiming that an intelligent, informed, and educated citizenry is vital to the struggle against international Communism; the provision of equal educational opportunities could, says Wilkins, “mean the difference between democratic life and totalitarian death.”

With white southerners seeking to hold the line against the civil rights movement and prevent meaningful change to the racial order, Wilkins makes clear that black Americans are not about to give up. The clock, in his words, is not going to be turned back, and he reminds his audience that the North won the Civil War (with the South’s surrender at Appomattox) and that white southerners, despite their efforts, would not be able to overturn this defeat. Wilkins invokes African Americans’ positive contribution to national life––including their service in the U.S. military––to justify the demand for equality, and he argues that white violence and obstruction has not shaken blacks’ belief that they are entitled––as Americans––to first-class citizenship. Indeed, he uses the bravery and dignity of the Little Rock Nine, who maintained their composure in the face of enormous provocation, as proof that black Americans remained resolute in their commitment to achieving equal rights. But Wilkins has a message for northerners too––that they must not sit back and simply observe the civil rights fight from afar, viewing it as a regional problem. Instead, they must make a collective decision to support decisive action on civil rights on the basis that it is in the interests not just of black Americans, but the nation as a whole.

Wilkins ends his speech on an optimistic and patriotic note, arguing that the virtues of America’s founding values and the strength of her political institutions will help deliver a just solution to the racial problem. While the road to equality might not always run smooth, says Wilkins, it will ultimately lead to the establishment of the “kingdom of righteousness”––a society in which all Americans, black as well as white, are able to enjoy justice, equality, dignity, and respect. Here, the NAACP leader goes as far as to claim that God is on the side of civil rights protesters. Like other black leaders, most notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Wilkins views the civil rights movement as being inspired, in part, by Christian teaching and as enjoying divine sanction. His speech thus helps illustrate the importance of religion to the civil rights movement.