I sent this blog to Niel Laudati the Community Relations Manager of the City of Springfield, along with other ideas that include the Miller Brothers and the Pre-Raphaelites. I will now tell him about the amazing connectio I found to Mary White Ovington perhaps THE founder of the NAACP and Women’s movements. I already sent him the threats I recieved, and speak of the monkeys of the wicked witch. Ding! Dong! I have a BOOK – a BIG BOOK. A cyber attack on my blog, that is my newspaper, will bring in the FBI, and guarantee a No.1 Best Seller. nlaudati@springfield-or.gov
Jul 17 at 11:51 AM

I composed this with Ben Toney, and the Sinclair family in mind. My friend, Robert Sinclair, has come under attack for being the messenger of a great debauchery and scandal. Perhaps you heard, the Wicked Witch of the North has launched her flying monkeys at me again? But, do not despair. At the end of the Monkey Ark in the Sky – is a smashing good movie! I just put Springfield on the map in regards to famous genealogies – that Dan Brown glommed onto. Just follow the flying monkeys!

John Presco

‘Modern Day Desperate Romantics’

Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Ovington joined the Socialist Party of America in 1905, where she met people including A. Philip Randolph, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman and Jack London, who argued that racial problems were as much a matter of class as of race.  Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Ovington joined the Socialist Party of America in 1905, where she met people including A. Philip Randolph, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman and Jack London, who argued that racial problems were as much a matter of class as of race. She wrote for radical journals and newspapers such as The Masses, New York Evening Post and the New York Call. She also worked with Ray Stannard Baker and influenced the content of his book, Following the Color Line, published in 1908.

On September 3, 1908 she read an article written by Socialist William English Walling, entitled “Race War in the North” in The Independent. Walling described a massive race riot directed at black residents in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois that led to seven deaths, the destruction of 40 homes and 24 businesses, and 107 indictments against rioters. Walling ended the article by calling for a powerful body of citizens to come to the aid of blacks. Ovington responded to the article by writing Walling and meeting at his apartment in New York City along with social worker Dr. Henry Moskowitz. The group decided to launch a campaign by issuing a call for a national conference on the civil and political rights of African-Americans on the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1909.

Many people responded to the call that eventually led to the formation of the National Negro Committee that held its first meeting in New York on May 31 and June 1, 1909. By May, 1910 the National Negro Committee and attendants, at its second conference, organized a permanent body known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where Ovington was appointed as its executive secretary. Early members included Josephine Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Mary Church Terrell, Inez Milholland, Jane Addams, George Henry White, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Edward Russell, John Dewey, Charles Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Fanny Garrison Villard, Oswald Garrison Villard and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.