We Charge Genocide - Background

Background

Soon after the United Nations was created in 1945, it began to receive requests for assistance from across the world. These came from European colonies in Africa and Asia, but also from African Americans. The first group to petition the UN regarding African Americans was the National Negro Congress (NNC), which in 1946 delivered a statement on racial discrimination to the Secretary General. The next appeal, from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1947, was over 100 pages in length. W. E. B. Du Bois presented it to the UN on 23 October 1947, over the objections of Eleanor Roosevelt, then an American delegate to the UN. Du Bois, frustrated with the State Department's opposition to the petitions, criticized Walter White for accepting a position as consultant to the US delegation; White in turn pushed Du Bois out of the NAACP.

The petitions were praised by international press and by Black press in the United States. America's mainstream media, however, were ambivalent or hostile. Some agreed that there was truth to the petitions, but suggested that 'tattling' to the UN would aid the cause of Communism. And indeed the Soviet Union did cite them as evidence of poor conditions in America.

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC), the successor to the International Labor Defense group, began to gain momentum domestically by defending Blacks sentenced to execution such as Rosa Lee Ingram and the Trenton Six. The NNC joined forces with the CRC in 1947.