Roy Wilkins

Roy Wilkins (1901–1981) was an American civil-rights leader who served as executive director of the NAACP from 1955 to 1977, guiding the organization through the height of the civil-rights movement.¹² His formative years were spent in Kansas City, where from 1923 to 1931 he worked at The Call — the city’s influential Black weekly — rising to managing editor and using its pages to attack Jim Crow segregation and mobilize Black voters.³⁴ His 1930 campaign through The Call against a segregationist U.S. senator drew the attention of national NAACP leadership and launched his decades-long national career.⁴⁵

Biography

Early life + education

Wilkins was born August 31, 1901, in St. Louis, Missouri.¹ After his mother died when he was about four, he was raised by an aunt and uncle in the Rondo neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota.¹ He attended the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1923 with a degree in sociology; while a student he worked on the campus newspaper and served as secretary of the local NAACP chapter.¹⁶

Kansas City years — The Call (1923–1931)

After graduating in 1923, Wilkins moved to Kansas City and joined The Call, the city’s African American weekly newspaper, as a reporter, soon becoming managing editor.³⁴ He wrote a regular column titled “Talking It Over” and used the paper to denounce the Jim Crow laws that segregated Black residents and denied them access to public facilities.⁵ He urged his readers to register and vote against racist politicians, and The Call campaigned for Black jury service, residential desegregation, and Black employment at local businesses.⁵ Under his editorship the paper’s reach grew dramatically — by 1929 The Call had one of the largest circulations of any Black newspaper, at nearly 20,000 copies per week.⁵

In 1930 Wilkins led a Call campaign opposing the reelection of Kansas U.S. Senator Henry J. Allen, who had supported discriminatory measures; Allen’s share of the Black vote in Kansas reportedly fell from about 75 percent to 25 percent, and he lost the seat.⁴⁵ The campaign’s success caught the attention of NAACP executive secretary Walter White, who recruited Wilkins to the national organization.⁴⁵ Wilkins left Kansas City for New York in 1931.³⁵

Rise in the NAACP

Wilkins joined the NAACP national staff in 1931 as assistant secretary under Walter White.¹⁴ In 1934 he succeeded W. E. B. Du Bois as editor of The Crisis, the NAACP’s official magazine, a post he held until 1949.¹⁷ Over the following two decades he became one of the organization’s most influential administrators.¹

NAACP executive director (1955–1977)

Wilkins became head of the NAACP in 1955, initially titled executive secretary; the title was later changed to executive director (1964 per Wikipedia).¹² He led the organization for 22 years, championing legal and legislative strategies — court challenges and federal civil-rights legislation — over more confrontational tactics.¹² He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.² He stepped down in 1977 at age 76 and was given the honorary title of director emeritus.²

Legacy

Wilkins received the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1964 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.¹ He died September 8, 1981, in New York City.¹ The Roy Wilkins Auditorium in Saint Paul, Minnesota, was named for him in 1985, and the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor in 2001.¹

Significance to Kansas City

Kansas City was Roy Wilkins’s launching ground. The eight years he spent at The Call (1923–1931) turned a young sociology graduate into a national civil-rights figure: it was in Kansas City that he learned investigative and advocacy journalism, sharpened his attacks on segregation, and ran the 1930 anti-Allen voter campaign that brought him to the NAACP’s notice.⁴⁵ His tenure also helped build The Call into one of the most widely read Black newspapers in the country, cementing Kansas City’s place in the national Black press.⁵ The trajectory he set at The Call was later continued at the paper by figures such as Lucile Bluford.⁸⁹

Sources

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Roy Wilkins.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Wilkins ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. NAACP — “Roy Wilkins.” https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/roy-wilkins ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City — “Roy Wilkins.” https://aahtkc.org/roy-wilkins ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Encyclopedia.com — “Wilkins, Roy Ottoway.” https://www.encyclopedia.com/law/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wilkins-roy-ottoway ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. The Pendergast Years — “Roy Ottoway Wilkins.” https://pendergastkc.org/articles/roy-ottoway-wilkins ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

6. Encyclopedia.com — “Roy Wilkins.” https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/social-reformers/roy-wilkins ↩

7. EBSCO Research Starters — “Roy Wilkins.” https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/roy-wilkins ↩

8. KC History (Missouri Valley Special Collections) — “Wilkins Rising.” https://kchistory.org/week-kansas-city-history/wilkins-rising ↩

9. Kansas City Black History — “Roy Wilkins.” https://kcblackhistory.org/articles/roy-wilkins ↩