From Allan Knight Chalmers
Author: Chalmers, Allan Knight (NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund)
Date: January 18, 1962
Location: New York, N.Y.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Travels
Details
Chalmers informs King of an upcoming meeting of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC), which will focus on resolving tensions between civil rights organizations.1 Recognizing that open communication has been established among the groups, Chalmers maintains additional steps are needed to quell issues “which could hurt the common cause.” In a handwritten addendum, he stresses that King’s “presence is indispensible,” given the potentially negative consequences of intramovement discord. King attended the meeting in Greenwich, Connecticut, on 20–21 March.2
Reverend Martin Luther King
407 Auburn Avenue N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia
Dear Martin:
I’m glad you have March 20th and 21st on your schedule for the next, and most important, meeting of the Joint Consultative Council. Informal discussions we have had with each other, at many affairs, have made it clear that the next meeting of the JCC should be a long enough one for us to get down to brass tacks in solving some of our problems of inter-organizational cooperation.3
We have communication well established but need to work out some solutions on dangers in the situation which could hurt the common cause.
Therefore, we have proposed for the next meeting, originally scheduled just for the 21st, that a conference beginning at suppertime (March 20th at 6:00 PM) is to be held at Seabury House in Greenwich (this is a retreat and consultation center run by the Episcopal Church). We shall be together overnight and continue until after lunch on March 21st.
In addition to yourself, I have seen the following informally at other conferences—Roy Wilkins, Oscar Lee, Bill [William] Oliver, Whit [Whitney] Young, Jim [James] Farmer, plus Jack Greenberg and myself—and all of us plan, definitely, to be there.4
Anyone may bring one other person along, but we want to make it a small concentrated group of friends who share this responsibility for the moment. Since we have to make definite reservations by name, I shall appreciate your letting me know officially that you will be there and who, if anyone, will accompany you.5
The cost will be $10.00 for the overnight stay, including three meals. If out of town members will notify me of their travel plans, we’ll see that you get there from New York.
The agreed presence of so many, already, insures a good conference. I am very anxious that we face, with complete honesty and uninhibited frankness, some very real difficulties. Come prepared to do a job in depth.
Sincerely,
[signed] Allan
Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers
Executive President
AKC:jcb
{Please keep firmly in mind that this is potentially a crucial meeting and your presence is indispensible. If you are not in jail, I count on your supporting me in this.}
1. Initially organized by Chalmers, the JCC was an informal gathering of prominent leaders from various national, religious, civic, and labor organizations created to address the immediate needs and overall direction of the civil rights movement in the south. King attended the first JCC meeting on 10 December 1960 at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York City. The group continued to meet regularly over the course of the next few years.
2. At the meeting, King pleaded for unity among the civil rights organizations and suggested a united fundraising campaign, which was not well received by NAACP representatives (SNCC, “Minutes of SNCC regional meeting,” 24 March 1962).
3. By early 1962, tensions had arisen between various civil rights groups, particularly the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE, regarding differences in philosophy, goals, and tactics. Reporting back to SNCC members about the meeting, SNCC’s executive secretary James Forman commented that SNCC was “a thorn in the flesh to many of the groups.” Forman also noted that NAACP leaders were concerned that their organization was being supplanted due to the creation of locally-based SCLC and CORE chapters (SNCC, “Minutes of SNCC regional meeting”). In January 1962 King responded to an SCLC donor’s letter expressing hopefulness that the reports of conflicts between groups were “exaggerated.” King conceded that each organization has a different approach to techniques and methods and was troubled about the media’s propensity to emphasize these differences, while the “larger and more positive significance can be found in the great amount of inter-organizational cooperation that goes on many times un-noticed” (Joseph S. Clark to King, 30 December 1961; King to Clark, 16 January 1962).
4. Chalmers refers to representatives of the NAACP, National Council of Churches, United Auto Workers, National Urban League, and Congress of Racial Equality, respectively. Greenberg, like Chalmers, worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
5. King was accompanied by SCLC executive director Wyatt Tee Walker (Chalmers to King, 28 March 1962).
Source: MCMLK-RWWL, Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives and Special Collections, Atlanta, Ga.