William F. Smith: “Mr. Speaker, I support House Concurrent Resolution 35 which recognizes the 100th anniversary of the NAACP. For a century…”

“Mr. Speaker, I support House Concurrent Resolution 35 which recognizes the 100th anniversary of the NAACP. For a century now, the NAACP has fought to bring justice and racial equality to all of America. In 1917, the NAACP won a legal victory in the Supreme Court which held that States could not restrict and officially segregate black Americans into residential districts. The same year the NAACP fought for the right of black Americans to be commissioned as officers in World War I. In 1935, NAACP lawyers Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall won a legal battle to admit a black student to the University of Maryland. During World War II, the NAACP led the effort that resulted in President Franklin Roosevelt's ordering a nondiscrimination policy in war-related industries and Federal employment. And in 1948, the NAACP convinced President Harry Truman to sign an executive order banning discrimination by the Federal Government. In 1954, under the leadership of Special Counsel Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP won one of its greatest legal victories in Brown v. Board of Education, which found segregated schools and other educational facilities in the United States to be unlawful. In 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, members of the NAACP Youth Council launched a series of nonviolent sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. The segregation ended.”