Monday, Sep. 17, 1923
To the People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the N. A. A. C. P.), an organization of active proponents of the Negro race, an organization with an effective propaganda department, held its 14th annual convention at Kansas City, Kansas. The convention adopted a resolution called A Message to the People of the United States.
After asserting various truths having to do with the destinies of the Negro and the white races, this message added:
"We ask the American people to insist upon the enactment of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. . . .
"We ask the President and the Congress of the United States that the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U. S. Constitution be made something more than a scrap of paper. .
"We ask that the troops of the United States be withdrawn from the black Republic of Haiti, illegally seized in 1916 and since then lawlessly held by virtue of superior force.
"We ask that the President of the United States . . . redeem the pledges made by the late and regretted President Harding that the Tuskegee Hospital built for colored World War Veterans ... be manned entirely by a colored personnel.
"We ask that the American people demand the release of the 54 members of the 24th Infantry now incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for their connection with the Houston, Texas [race] riots of 1917. ."