San Antonio NAACP News and Contact information

NAACP to mark 90th year

For more than 50 years, Ethel Minor has looked racism and injustice straight in the eye without flinching.

“It’s never been easy. There were so many ills in the community,” recalled Minor, who for 10 consecutive years was president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“There’s been a lot of battles and lots of victories, but racism is still alive and well.”

On Friday, Minor and others will gather in downtown San Antonio to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the NAACP, the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization.

The association synonymous with the civil rights movement was founded in New York City in 1909.

Eight years later, the San Antonio branch was organized at a time lynching and Jim Crow segregation were common across Texas and the South.

“‘Colored only’ signs were everywhere. There were a lot of places where we weren’t allowed to try on clothes,” Minor recalled.

Minor, 77, local branch president from 1986 to 1996, was born in San Antonio and reared in the Texas town of Columbus.

She returned to San Antonio in 1944 and plunged headfirst into the civil rights movement.

“The early presidents of the organization need to be saluted,” Minor said. “They risked their lives when nobody wanted to talk about civil rights.”

Minor credits the NAACP for gains won for all minorities. But she’s convinced that today’s young people are taking those hard-fought rights for granted.

“They need to remember they couldn’t always sit in the front of the bus. Nowadays they can drive the bus.” Thomas C. Rockeymoore, president of the local branch since Jan.1, said discrimination still exists, and the local organization should play a pivotal role in eliminating it.

“Discrimination hasn’t gone away. We here at the NAACP will fight on behalf of all people regardless of their color,” said Rockeymoore, who said local membership has climbed to close to 1,000 from 350 earlier in the year.

“We’re getting more people involved and are organizing chapters at area colleges,” he said

Nationally, the organization’s membership stands at 500,000.

Today, national president Kweisi Mfume and Chairman Julian Bond have reached out to other civil rights organizations.

Collaborations between the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organization, are common.

Rockeymoore said diversity is good for the organization.

“We have Hispanic members. Discrimination affects all of us, no matter what race you happen to be,” said Rockeymoore, who said he was pleased that two civil rights pillars in San Antonio will be honored during Friday’s Freedom Fund Dinner at the Marriott Rivercenter.

“Well be honoring the Rev. Claude Black and former Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez. They are giants in our community,” Rockeymoore said.

For more information on the NAACP San Antonio Branch, call 653-6032 or 226-8807.

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