RESPECT AND PROTECT THE BLACK WOMAN

Mid-20th century backpin button, original image from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Dear Ogden,

I couldn’t let Black History Month come to a close without a few words. It has taken me all month long to find them, the right ones, and to decide whether or not to say them at all.

I’ve been asking myself what I can do, not just in February in a Black History Month post, or after another atrocity, but year-round.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909 by Black and white activists—journalists, reformers, and scholars—in response to yet another incidence of horrific violence, this time in the Black neighborhood of Springville, Illinois by an angry white mob.

It did then and continues to require all of us— white and POC—to actively participate in the ongoing march toward social justice.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson (whose letters I read nightly and you should too) writes that since its early newspaper The Crisis, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, that called attention to racial injustice, the NAACP has relied on information to rally people to the cause for equality.

As a journalist, the NAACP’s newspaper origins and use of information speak to me.

I want more people in Ogden to know about the Ogden NAACP.

In a February, 2021 Standard-Examiner article about the Ogden NAACP, I wrote:

“Women played a significant role in the early leadership of the Ogden NAACP, which formed in 1944 after the dubious killing of a young Black man by an Ogden police officer. Mary Louise Finch advanced the Ogden chapter, and the first two branch presidents were women: Ruby Timms Price and Sadie Louden.”

At present, Betty Sawyer is the branch President and the executive committee is mostly women.

There is a rich legacy of strong Black women in Ogden. Sisters Alicia and Camille Washington, are founders of a pillar of the Ogden art scene, Good Company Theatre. Another, businesswomen Anna Belle Weakley, known as the “Queen of 25th Street,” ran the Porters & Waiters Club in the mid-1900s, where Ogden’s legendary jazz player Joe McQueen played since 1945, along with other famous Black musicians that she’d bring in, including BB King; Marvin Gaye, and Duke Ellington.

Porters & Waiters Club was one of the most famous Black clubs in the West, where it’s said that Black musicians sought escape from Salt Lake, as it was the only place they were allowed to dine and get a room. The jazz club was desegregated in 1951.

I want us all to come together more, in real life, as they did at Porters & Waiters Club.

Join me in following the Ogden NAACP—they’ve shared amazing educational and thoughtful posts on their Facebook page all month.

Become a member of our local branch, for $30 per year. If you’re already a member, you can buy a gift membership for someone.

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Women’s History Month.

For membership and organization info visit naacpogden.org.