NAACP support of the Vietnam War – 1963-1969

Wilkins issued a memorandum to all local units of the NAACP warning that “organized units of the NAACP have no authority” to participate in the caucus of underrepresented people established in Washington, DC in August 1965, where the main agenda item It was a rally to oppose US policy in Vietnam. Wilkins further noted that NAACP leaders must be “aware that it is difficult for the public to disassociate them from the organization.” [and] that the NAACP has not passed any resolution opposing U.S. policy in Vietnam, nor has it called for the White House to collapse or the Capitol to be taken over.” Local NAACP officials were asked not to participate in anti-war demonstrations to avoid potential conflicts of interest between their personal anti-war views and their roles as NAACP officers.

Wilkins praised Johnson for his handling of international affairs, especially Vietnam. In March 1966, at the Freedom House Annual Award dinner, Wilkins presented President Johnson with a bronze bust of Johnson, engraved as follows:

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Freedom at home was never more widely shared nor aggression abroad more wisely resisted than under his leadership of the Nation.

LIBERTY HOUSE–1966

Wilkins was well aware of the support he enjoyed from President Johnson, as well as the level of influence he wielded on the issue of civil rights initiatives. According to Wilkins, Johnson was on the phone with him calling constantly “before each one of [Johnson’s] major civil rights speeches and after every civil rights crisis.” (Matthews, 299) asked Wilkins, “I’m always calling you. Why don’t you call me more often?” (Matthews, 299) From then on, Wilkins never had a problem communicating directly with the president when he called.

Wilkins was also aware of the financial support the NAACP received from major sources and likely feared recrimination if he or other organization officials expressed disapproval of the war effort. As other civil rights organizations spoke out against the war, their funding dwindled, while the NAACP’s funding skyrocketed.

Another possible reason for Wilkins’s close alignment with Johnson during the Vietnam War stemmed from his earlier anti-war sentiments and actions, many of which were documented in his FBI file. According to his FBI file records, he was a patron of the Fourth Annual New York City Conference Against War and Fascism in 1937, and was one of the keynote speakers at the wartime Intergroup Unity Conference held in 1944. at the Fraternal Club House of the International Order of Workers. in New York (FBI File 100-7629, June 1958) Wilkins, nearly 30 years old at the time of these antiwar actions, was, in the mid-1960s, the leader of a major civil rights organization and therefore may have thought he needed to distance himself from his youthful indiscretions.

Wilkins’s support for Johnson’s policies in Vietnam seemed at odds with the NAACP’s own civil rights agenda at home. Lifting African Americans (about 11% of the population at the time) out of conditions of poverty was central to the NAACP’s initiatives and was part of Johnson’s Great Society program. Transplanting impoverished young African-American men from American cities to the jungles of South Vietnam was a byproduct of Johnson’s policies.

Other observers have noted how African-American participation in Vietnam was economically beneficial. For most young African Americans, soldiers’ pay was the most money they had ever seen. Levy points out that African-Americans volunteered for the dangerous elite units because the pay for dangerous tasks was even higher: an extra $55 per month for paratrooper volunteers. (Levy, 212) Journalist Wallace Terry told the story of a sixteen-year-old African-American Marine from an impoverished family in Brooklyn, New York, who had lied about his age in order to join the Marines so he could earn money to send it to him. to his mother. . He later died in combat and Terry swore that he would write a book about these young African Americans from the ghettos of America. Wilkins was certainly aware of the economic benefits of armed service for young African Americans, including the lucrative GI Bill benefits for those soldiers who returned alive from Vietnam.

African-American men volunteered for service in Vietnam in disproportionate numbers. Only after 1968, when Black Power militants began to see through the war’s disguise, was there a decline in African-American volunteers (although there was a corresponding increase in recruits). Whether at the beginning or end of the war, the combat service of African-American soldiers in Vietnam was illustrative of the first war in American history to be fought with an integrated military. The NAACP was very proud of this achievement.

As for the number of African-American soldiers serving in Vietnam, Crisis, citing President Johnson’s message to Congress on April 28, 1966, noted that “African-Americans constituted 22 percent of the men enlisted in our US combat units.” army in Vietnam, and 22 percent of those who have lost their lives in battle there. (May 1966: 247) Mark Rosenman indicated that “black” soldiers accounted for 21% of casualties while comprising 18.3% of the army (196), while Peter Levy suggested that African Americans made up “nearly 20% of the combat troops. in 1965.” It was clear that African-Americans represented a higher percentage, compared to their number in the general population at the time. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara contributed to this higher percentage by lowering the entry standards for armed forces (Project 100,000 initiative), believing that “the armed forces were a time-tested means of social advancement” (Tomás Johnson, 16)

Aside from the view that the war was improving the economic and social prospects of the young African Americans who participated, the NAACP was unwilling to alienate President Johnson on the issue of Vietnam, given his continued political support for major civil rights initiatives. . When Martin Luther King Jr. made a speech denouncing the war at a fundraising dinner for Nation magazine in February 1967, he deepened the rift between moderates and liberals within the civil rights movement. According to Levy, moderates felt that it was, in part, “suicidal to break with President Johnson, not only because of the impracticality of breaking with a wartime president, but also because of a sense of loyalty to the leader who had given so much.” blacks a lot.”

The rift that developed between the NAACP and other civil rights leaders and organizations after King’s anti-Vietnam speech in 1967 led historian James Westheider to turn his attention to African-American soldiers themselves for their views on the war. He found that most soldiers approved of their own involvement in the war, with some even taking critical views of King and others who spoke out against the war:

An African-American officer assigned as an adviser to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) commented:

Brother is doing well here… You see, it’s almost the first time in his life that he finds he can compete with the whites on equal terms, or almost on equal terms. He tries very hard in these kinds of situations and he does it well.

Army Major Beauregard Brown noted:

Service in Vietnam represented the best opportunity for advancement, anywhere, for a black career officer.

An eighteen-year-old Marine private stated quite simply:

Brother is here, and he’s making hell. We are testing ourselves.