Civil Rights Activities
During the early 1960s, he participated in the Civil Rights struggle in Savannah (see The Black Librarian in America, pp. 308–11). He served on the Executive Board of the Savannah Branch of the NAACP as well as the Executive Board of the Albany, NY Branch of the NAACP.
In 1964 he carried the Civil Rights struggle into the American Library Association. In spite of the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision, which encouraged desegregation of libraries and ALA chapters, the ALA was slow in implementing integration of all of its southern chapters until Josey offered his resolution at the 1964 Conference which prevented ALA officers and staff members from attending segregated state chapter meetings. The four remaining segregated chapters that denied membership to African-American librarians at that time were Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi; and they integrated immediately. He is well known for his uncompromising opposition to any form of discrimination whether it is racial, gender, age or sexual orientation.
Read more about this topic: E. J. Josey
Famous quotes containing the words civil rights, civil, rights and/or activities:
“... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“Quite often ... these little guys, who might be making atomic weapons or who might be guilty of some human rights violation ... are looking for someone to listen to their problems and help them communicate.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)