About the Georgia State Conference NAACP

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The Struggle

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

A Brief History of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP

The 40s and 50s

In the early stages of World War II, in November 1941, Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert, Pastor of the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, convened about ten (10) branches of the NAACP which included Savannah, Brunswick, Dublin, Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, Albany and about three others whose names are not certain to form the State Conference. This small group met and elected the following officers: Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert, President, Reverend M. F. Adams, Treasurer, and a schoolteacher, whose name was not listed because of reprisals against state employees who became members of the NAACP. Members included were: Joe P. Atkinson and Georgia Bibbs of Brunswick, Reverend A. L. Brewster of Dublin, Dr. Thomas Brewer of Columbus, C. l. Harper and Jesse Thomas of Atlanta, Dr. L. M. Terrell, Pastor of Bryan Baptist Church of Savannah, C. A. Scott, Editor of the Atlanta Daily World, Attorney A. T. Walden of Atlanta, and a black attorney from Macon.

The State Conference of Branches grew under the aggressive leadership of Dr. Gilbert. At the time of his death in 1949, there were forty (40) NAACP Branches in Georgia. There was at least one (1) College Chapter, sponsored by the colleges which now make up the Atlanta University Center. Amos Holmes, former state Conference president, who was enrolled at Clark College at the time served as the Clark College president in 1936-37. The Atlanta Branch was organized in 1917. Dr. C. L. Harper, courageous and militant principal of Georgia’s first public high school, was President of the Atlanta Branch during that period, 1936 – 1950.

During those early years, Walter White, National Executive Secretary, whose native home was Atlanta and Mrs. Ella Baker, National Field Secretary and later National Membership Secretary, worked with the Georgia State Conference as it grew and joined with the National Association to combat lynching, integrating the Armed Services, aided in the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations into one union (AFL-CIO) which accepted black members, increased participation in the state and federal electoral processes as well as successfully attacking the White Democratic Primary which excluded black participation.

The State Conference in Cordele in 1950 elected William Madison Boyd, a Professor at Atlanta University as the State Conference President. Mr. Gloster Current, a union organizer and militant from Detroit, Michigan became National Director of NAACP Branches, and Roy Wilkins, former Editor of the Kansas City Call, became Assistant Director to Walter White, whose health was declining at the time. The involvement and aggression became more intense as the dynamic leadership of Bill Boyd harnessed more of the middle-class blacks in Georgia in support of the NAACP programs. Dr. Boyd died in 1955, and the youthful and forceful president of the Savannah Branch: Wesley W. Law was elected as state president. Mr. Law came to the helm at a very significant period of NAACP influence in Georgia.

Through the 60s, 70s and 80s

After a brief tenure of Charles Price as Field Secretary, Amos O. Holmes was engaged as Georgia’s Field Secretary; 1958-1962 and again 1966-67. Joe Louis Tucker and Leon Cox assumed the position of Georgia Field Secretaries from 1962-64; 1964-66 respectively. They were very effective in seeing to it that the 1964 Civil Rights Law and the 1965 Voting Rights Law were implemented in Georgia cities and counties. This required lawsuits to be brought against non-complying officials. During the intervening years Vernon Jordan served as the Georgia Field Director and Robert Flanagan began his ten years of service in 1968.

During the period 1955 – 72, the NAACP’s regional staff and the staff of the Georgia State Conference Branches were on the frontline of battle beleaguered by unrelenting forces that did not give in until the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed in Congress and began to be enforced in 1965.

Reverend Julius C. Hope was elected President of the State Conference held in Brunswick in 1966 and served until his appointment as Director of Religious Affairs for the National NAACP in 1978. He brought charisma and an elegant style to the “now” generation that had become stylish. Church support increased and the youth easily allied with him. ** 

Shortly after he retired from the Field Staff; Robert Flanagan became President of the State Conference in 1978. Branch growth was phenomenal under his leadership, increasing to 100 units in Georgia. The National NAACP Convention gave awards to Georgia for significant membership and branch increases during his tenure as Georgia Field Director. Many of the achievements worthy of note in Georgia were due to the leadership of Regional, State and local Branch leadership working together. Flanagan’s civil rights activisms actually began in 1956 when he was an officer in the United States Air Force, assigned to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama where his path crossed his boyhood friend and classmate; Martin Luther king, Jr. He consented to work with King in getting the Black Military personnel to support the Montgomery Movement. He risked his life in the 60s and 70s by going over most of Georgia organizing NAACP branches and was personally responsible for organizing over 75 new branches in Georgia. In addition, he conducted massive voter registration and education drives that directly resulted in Blacks being elected to state, city, and county governmental position; positions blacks had not held since Reconstruction Days. Flanagan was presented the Thalheimer Award for outstanding program activities in Georgia by the National NAACP and was elected to the National Board of Directors in 1985.

Near the end of World War ll, lynching in Montgomery, Lee and Walton Counties focused federal attention on lynching in Georgia, which generated white and black response to atrocities and threats by the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. State law unhooded the Klan during the 50s’. The 1954 Supreme Court Decision opened a battle in the spectrum of public education, public and private colleges and universities. It took sixteen years before any measurable amount of integration took place in Georgia’s education system. Charlene Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were admitted to the University of Georgia in the early ‘60s. Horace Ward and earlier applicant was turned down by the Federal Court in the 1950’s, went to Northwestern University and returned to litigate the successful court for the admission of Hunter and Holmes. 

June 11, 1944, representatives from eleven cities and counties in Georgia gathered in Macon to organize the Georgia Association of Democratic Clubs to give legitimacy to the suit filed from Columbus by Reverend Primus King against the Democratic White Primary of Georgia. In the summer of 1964, 90 percent of Blacks registered in Georgia voted in the Democratic Primary. Voting by Blacks and election of Black Officials has increased dramatically since that time.

Ed Brown of Camilla, Georgia followed Mr. Flanagan as state conference president in October, 1986. Brown had previously served as 1st Vice President.

Just a few months after taking office, Ed Brown, along with other civil rights leaders including then-Southeast Regional Director Earl T. Shinhoster, led the famous march through Forsyth County in January, 1987.

Brown represented the State Conference at the march on the South African Embassy as well as the Silent March in Washington, DC. 

Under Brown’s administration, there were 134 active branches, including over 30 branches that were reorganized or newly chartered during the first years of his tenure.

In 1988, Brown led a rally in protest of the mysterious death of an African-American female in Catoosa County in far north Georgia, and later led the fight against a medical landfill in Taylor County.

Walter C. Butler, Jr. of Madison, Morgan County, who served several terms as 1st Vice President, was elected State Conference President at the 51st Annual State Convention in Augusta, over Al Williams of Midway, Liberty County, who would later be elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, and as Chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus in 2006.

Under Mr. Butler’s administration, membership throughout the state remained strong, which resulted in the State Conference opening an office that operated within the Southeast Regional Office. Ruth F. Ash of Clayton County, was hired as Office Manager for the State Conference in 1997.

During 1998, the Georgia State Conference NAACP along with the Atlanta Branch welcomed thousands of delegates and attendees from across the country to the 89th Annual NAACP National Convention in Atlanta---the first National Convention in Georgia in 36 years— since 1962. 

In 1999, the Georgia State Conference NAACP was a lead plaintiff in a major lawsuit against the Secretary of State challenging the constitutionality of campaign finance for state senate elections, although it was ruling of the federal appeals court was not favorable, it demonstrated the leadership and tenacity of the State Conference.

In 2003, under Walter C. Butler’s administration, the Georgia State Conference NAACP played a significant role in the Georgia State Flag issue, which led to a referendum in 2004 to resolve the issue once and for all.

One of the largest peaceful demonstrations in the history of the State Conference as a candlelight vigil was held in January, 2004 at the Georgia State Capitol in support of Marcus Dixon, young African American high school football player from Rome who was charged with rape of a white girl and was sentenced to ten years in prison until the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the conviction. Then-National President/CEO Kweisi Mfume joined other state and national leaders in urging Dixon’s release.

In January, 2005, more than 10,000 people converged on Columbus to a march and rally for Kenneth Walker, who was shot in the head by a Muscogee County Sheriff’s deputy as he lay on the side of an interstate highway after the vehicle in which he was riding was stopped by cops who thought they were cornering a Florida drug dealer in December, 2003.

In August, 2005, the Georgia State Conference NAACP along with other groups co-sponsored a rally for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act which then-National President/CEO Bruce S. Gordon was among the speakers in one of his first major appearances.

In October 2005, at the 63rd State Convention in Athens, Edward Oscar DuBose, President of the Columbus, Georgia branch, succeeded Butler as State Conference President. In January, 2006, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Sears administered the oath to DuBose and other newly-elected state conference officers at a historic ceremony held at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Almost immediately upon taking office DuBose began an aggressive campaign of visiting branches, and gave critical support to citizens in Taylor County for the placement of separate markers to honor the white and black World War II veterans, and played a key role behind honoring Maceo Snipes, a WWII veteran who was murdered shortly after being the first African-American to register to vote in Taylor County in 1946.

DuBose was one of the first to give support of the West Metro Branch’s efforts in the case of the “Douglasville Six”, which culminated in the case of Genarlow Wilson, a 17 year old student who was charged with child molestation for consensual sex with a 15-year-old student.

Under DuBose, the Georgia State Conference NAACP opened its own separate suite of offices in 2007, which became necessary following the closure of the Southeast Regional Office and the reduction in Branch and Field office staff. 

DuBose launched a bold campaign to investigate unsolved murders and deaths of African Americans throughout the state, and made national news by asking the Governor of Georgia to apologize for slavery. Since taking office, the State Conference under Edward DuBose has seen 19 branches elect new presidents, and he has visited 63 branches in every corner of the state.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia has more information about the history of the NAACP in Georgia.

Information about W. W. Law courtesy of the Savannah Morning News