Roy Wilkins Mr Civil Rights

of years as Whites assistant, in 1934 Wilkins seceded W. E. B. DuBois as editor of the NAACPs magazine, the Crisis. In that same year, he suffered the first arrest of his civil rights career. During a protest at the Attorney Generals office in Washington, D.C., they were there protesting to get the National Conference of Crime to add  Lynching to their agenda of topics. He served as a consultant to the War Department in 1941 on the problems of blacks in the United States Armed Forces. In 1945, after serving the War Department as an advisor, he was a consultant to the Americans at the founding United Nations Conference, after WWII. After the unfortunate death of Executive Secretary Walter White in 1949, Wilkins assumed the position as the leader of the NAACP. Then in 1950, they named him Administrator of Internal Affairs of the NAACP. In 1964, they named him Leadership Director. Also, in 1964, Wilkins received a very prestigious award. He was presented with the NAACPs Medal for distinguished service in civil rights. In 1969, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Richard Nixon. Yet as any good thing does, it came to an end. After twenty-two years as the Executive Director, he retired from the NAACP in 1977. Then sadly, on September 8, 1981, he died in New York City at the age of eighty years old. Roy Wilkins approach to gaining civil rights for blacks was different from others of his time. Unlike some of his counterparts, he felt that blacks needed to take a nonviolent approach to gaining civil rights. He thought that student sit-ins and general civil disobedience were all right, but preferred a legal approach, with court hearings, negotiations, etc. In 1959, he publically rebuked the Monroe, N. Carolina chapter of the NAACP because of its vigorous assertion of blacks rights to self defense. He preferred passive resistance. Sometimes people wonder what wou...