Through the agencies of such organizations and societies as named below thousands of Northern white people either by means of their money or through actual service among the Colored people in the South showed their unquestioned friendships for the Negro race. Some of the most important of those friendly organs were as follows:
“Freedman’s Bureau, American Missionary Association, The American Freedmen’s Union Commission, The Baltimore Association for the Moral Educational Improvement of the colored people, The Western Freedmen’s Aid Commission, National Freedmen’s Relief Association of the District of Columbia, The Soldiers’ Memorial Society of Boston, Old School General Assembly Presbyterian Church, American Baptist Home Mission Society, The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, and The Pennsylvania Friends’ Freedmen’s Relief Association of Philadelphia.
The two Presidents of the United States who have proved themselves, through both words and deeds, truly to have been the greatest white friends the Negro race has ever had in the White House were Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
The following are a few names handed to the writer by capable estimators as being among the many thousands of America’s “real white” people, who, either before or during the Civil War, Reconstruction Period or during the present times, have shown by their encouraging and fearless words and their generous and helpful deeds that they had or have within them the deepest brotherhood interest for the truest humane welfare and progress of the Negro Race:
(Some names in above list are extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, p. 34.)
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has its headquarters in New York City. This organization was fittingly originated in 1909 at a banquet celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the immortal Abraham Lincoln. The one who made the first move for its organization was a white woman, Miss Mary White Ovington, who is recognized today as the Harriet Beecher Stowe of her race. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College and is the author of several books. It has been greatly through her untiring and helpful efforts that this organ now has in America, Canada, Canal Zone and Philippine Islands nearly four hundred branches that have a membership of over one hundred thousand. At this writing the association is conducting a campaign for the securing of two hundred fifty thousand members. The true steering rudder of this tremendous ark of safety is in the steady hands of Moorfield Storey, who as its pilot is being ably assisted in accurately compassing all rightful courses by his keen-eyed lookout crew that is composed of Robt. W. Bagnall, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, Archibald H. Grimke, Rev. John H. Holmes, Mrs. Addie W. Hunton, Bishop John Hurst, Jas. Weldon Johnson, Miss Mary White Ovington, William Pickens, Arthur B. Spingarn, J. E. Spingarn, Mrs. Mary B. Talbert, Oswald Garrison Villard and Walter White.
The work of this association is best explained in the following matter which is a copy of one of its programs: