Born in St. Louis in 1901 and raised in Saint Paul’s Rondo neighborhood from the age of 4, Roy Wilkins wrote the press release that launched the Civil Rights Movement.
Wilkins had worked for the Minnesota Daily while he trained as a Sociologist at the University of Minnesota. When W. E. B. Du Bois left the NAACP in 1934, Wilkins replaced him as editor of The Crisis, their official magazine from 1949 to 1950.
He knew how to write a press release, and he knew how to motivate people.
It was Sept. 1st, 1955, and Wilkins, the new Executive Secretary of the NAACP, had been notified by a journalist in Chicago about a body that had been found in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi, the day before.
Wilkins, who had lived in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and New York City, was an expert on Mississippi and white supremacy. He sent a telegram demanding Gov. White use the power of the State to bring the lynchers to justice.
If the governor didn’t comply with his wishes, according to the press release, he would be condoning the murder of children.
Within hours of the shooting, Governor White had responded, and the suspects had been identified and charged with murder.
Within 24 hours of the body’s discovery, Mississippi police had released details of the autopsy results, the motive, the names, race, and gender of all three suspects, and a warrant was issued for the woman whose lies and histrionic behavior had caused all of it.
By end of the day, President Eisenhower had been advised, and the US Attorney General had been telegraphed, demanding a federal investigation.
This press release sparked the Civil Rights Movement and the career of Roy Wilkins. He provided assistance against white citizens’ councils following Brown v. Board of Education.
He helped coordinate deposits into a Black Bank in Mississippi.
He hired Mamie Till and booked her speaking engagements at record-breaking NAACP fundraisers until they eventually had a falling out over money. (page 17)
Wilkins directed Thurgood Marshall and Arthur Shores that all NAACP resources would be used to defend the leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, except Rosa Parks.
As Executive Director of the NAACP, he participated in the Marches on Selma and was an organizer of the March on Washington, where he was introduced as “The Acknowledged Champion of Civil Rights in America”.
A title he held until Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King gave his, “I Have a Dream” speech.
Wilkins had a St. Paul stadium named in his honor in 1985 and was known as the “Senior Statesman of the Civil Rights Movement until his death.
