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Thursday, December 26, 2013

"New Negro Alliance"(1933-1940's)

Was a Washington,D.C. based organization founded by mostly middle class African Americans to use pickets,economic boycotts,and other direct action protests to promote civil rights.It sought to increase African American employment opportunities,especially in white collar positions and to challenge discriminatory practices.The NNA,wasn't the first organization in the city's African American community to use direct action protests to combat discrimination,it was the largest and most successful organization to that date to employ economy boycotts as its main tool for civil rights.The NNA began in August 1933 when John Aubrey Davis,a twenty-one year old Williams College graduated boycotted the Hamburger Grill,a white-owned business in an African American neighborhood which had fired its three African American employees.After the Hamburger Grill Boycott,the NNA was formed.With John Davis,Belford V.Lawson,Jr.,and M.Franklin Thorne as its leaders,the New Negro Alliance launched campaign such "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work,"and "jobs for Negroes."Between December 1933 & 1937 the NNA published a weekly newspaper,New Negro Opinion,to help its campaign for civil rights.Led by attorney and NNA founder Belford Lawson,the NNA won a major legal victory in its lawsuit against the Sanitary Grocery Company which had challenged the organization's right to organize a boycott against it.The Washington,D.C. are grocery chain had 255 retail outlets including many in African American neighborhoods,they refused to hire African Americans in any capacity.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New Negro Alliance v.Sanitary Grocery Company,Inc.(1938) that "those having a direct or indirect interest in the matters of employment have the freedom to take action against discrimination and peacefully persuade others."This win strengthened the NNA.The organization could not mount successful boycotts against People's Drug Stores and the Safeway Grocery chain in 1940.Those defeats indicated that the local community was no longer willing to support boycotts as a civil rights tactic which meant the beginning of the NNA'S demise.Also in 1941 President D.Roosevelt issued Executive Order # 8802 which set up the fair Employment Practices Committee to investigate employment discrimination.Coupled with World War II labor demands,many of the most blatant pattern of employment discrimination in Washington ended.

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