From the archives: Local NAACP celebrates 50 years

This story was originally published in Newsday on Dec. 13, 1996.

When arsonists repeatedly targeted the home of a black man in Copiague in 1953, a fledgling branch of the NAACP, led by a 30-year-old dentist, took up the cause.

Activists with the civil rights group's Central Long Island Chapter argued that discrimination was not only a Southern problem, and the battle propelled them into the national spotlight.

Today, as the chapter prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is still active, mediating community disputes with the police, lobbying government officials to appoint blacks to their administrations, urging local school systems to hire black teachers and pressing for affordable housing.

"You still do have pockets of segregation and discrimination," said Myrna Taylor, a former chapter president who is still active. "Amityville is still divided by north and south, and that's typical of the Island. A lot of things are separate but unequal."

The branch fought to overcome what many regard as Long Island's enclave mentality - which has kept many of its neighborhoods and institutions virtually all-white - paving the way for many of the blacks who live on Long Island today.

White resistance to the increasing influx of blacks moving onto the Island during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s spurred the branch to become one of the most active in New York state.

But the chapter, which plans to mark its anniversary with an 11 a.m. luncheon tomorrow at the Huntington Hilton, has suffered its share of setbacks.

In January, the U.S. District Court in Uniondale rejected an NAACP lawsuit alleging that the Town of Babylon's at-large voting system prevented blacks, who make up about 18 percent of the population, from electing black officials. No black has ever been a member of the town board. And NAACP officials say there have not been enough younger people to help shoulder the burden carried by its aging leadership.

Eugene Reed, who became the branch's second president in 1953 and remains an active member, said he is disappointed that many whites believe discrimination has ended and that many blacks believe the NAACP has outlived its usefulness.

Cross burnings in Mineola and South Setauket, a racially tinged beating in Westhampton this year and the torching of a Smithtown home that had been sold to a black family last year are among several incidents that have perpetuated an atmosphere of racial intimidation on Long Island, many blacks say.

"The NAACP is still relevant because I don't know of any other force still fighting racism in this area," Reed said. "In the South, there is the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There used to be CORE Congress Of Racial Equality here, but it's dead now. The only one out there is the NAACP."