THE BIG FIVE IN CIVIL RIGHTS

HOWEVER spontaneous it may seem, the Negro revolution is guided by five civil organizations. Sometimes they work together, but the alliance is uneasy. They employ different strategy and tactics. And as the revolution gathers impetus, there is increasing rivalry--not only for recognized leadership but for the financial backing that it brings. The five top organizations, excluding the Black Muslims, who are not interested in civil rights:

THE N.A.A.C.P.: In the Courts

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has become the nation's biggest (400,000 members in 1,200 chapters), best-known civil rights organization. For years it fought the Negro's battles in the courts, achieved its greatest triumph in 1954 after its special counsel, Thurgood Marshall, now a federal appellate judge, successfully argued for the Supreme Court's historic school desegregation decision.

But to Negroes nowadays court action seems not nearly enough, and the N.A.A.C.P. is feeling the pressure. Last week able Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins complained publicly: "The other organizations furnish the noise and get the publicity while the N.A.A.C.P. furnishes the manpower and pays the bills. A good many things have not been made known to our membership. They have come to believe that we are standing on the sidelines working up legal cases while everybody else is participating in nonviolent direct action. We don't like to have people talking about us as if we were old and sitting in the corner knitting." As if to give weight to his words, Wilkins recently went to Jackson, Miss., deliberately got himself arrested as a civil rights demonstrator.

THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE: In the Community

The Urban League's executive director, Whitney Young Jr., is unwilling to follow Wilkins' example. "I do not see," he says, "why I should have to go to jail to prove my leadership." Founded in 1910 and mainly supported by white philanthropic funds (notably including the Rockefeller), the Urban League stresses community action, including job training and social welfare programs. The most "professional" of the organizations, the league, with its fulltime, salaried staffers, furnishes research and planning guidance to almost all the other groups.

With chapters in 65 cities, the Urban League seeks civil rights progress through biracial consultation and cooperation. For that reason it is sometimes accused of Uncle Tomism--but smart, tough Director Young, 42, is certainly no Uncle Tom. Educated at Kentucky State College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Minnesota, he was dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work when selected for his Urban League post. As soon as he assumed Urban League leadership, he stepped up the organization's pace. A veteran staffer protested: "We don't work this fast." Replied Young: "From now on, we will. We've got to, or we'll be left behind."

Young argues that the U.S. Negro, having suffered centuries of injustice, requires not mere equality, but a limited period of special treatment, to enable him to accept his legal rights. He wants a massive, domestic Marshall Plan, with emphasis on slum clearance and job training. Still, Young refuses to let the Urban League name be used in the activist demonstrations going on across the nation. Says he: "You can holler, protest, march, picket, demonstrate; but somebody must be able to sit in on the strategy conferences and plot a course. There must be the strategists, the researchers and the professionals to carry out a program. That's our role."

CORE: On the Road

The Congress of Racial Equality makes claim to inventing the sit-in and the Freedom Ride. Formed in 1942, it first tried the sit-in technique that year on a Chicago restaurateur named Jack Spratt. Says CORE'S National Director James Farmer, 43: "The N.A.A.C.P. is the Justice Department, the Urban League is the State Department, and we are the nonviolent Marines."

Farmer, a World War II conscientious objector, describes himself as a disciple of Gandhi. Says he: "It's going to be a long, hot summer. These spontaneous demonstrations are going to be a problem. Our job is to channelize them constructively. I feel very strongly for nonviolence." Yet for one reason or another, violence often accompanies CORE's demonstrations.

S.C.L.C.: In One Man's Image

The Southern Christian Leadership Council owes its existence almost entirely to the inspirational qualities of its founder: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. King started S.C.L.C. to give him organizational backing after his successful Montgomery bus boycott in 1956. But for quite a while, King suffered an eclipse--and S.C.L.C. seemed almost ready to go out of business.

King came back this past April, when he organized civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham. Since then, S.C.L.C. has been just about the hottest organization in the civil rights field--much to the discomfiture of other groups. "King," complains the leader of one, "is getting all the money." Yet as an organization, S.C.L.C. would probably fold tomorrow were King to leave it.

S.N.C.C.: On the Streets

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (dubbed "SNICK") was formed in 1960 at a Raleigh meeting of Southern Negro college students. That meeting was called by none other than Martin Luther King--but King was unwilling to move fast enough to satisfy the youngsters. Brash, reckless and disorganized, SNICK is headed by a 35-year-old Chicagoan named James Forman. With its shock troops heading into Southern towns to start segregation protests and voter-registration drives, SNICK counts success in terms of bloodied noses, beatings at the hands of cops, and days spent by its members in jail. The bigger, better-organized civil rights organizations shudder at SNICK'S bobtail operations. "They don't consult anybody." But for raw courage and persistence, SNICK wins grudging admiration even from its rivals.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.