Tonight on WEAA FM, the Anthony McCarthy show profusely lauded Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., a civil rights leader who was born 100 years ago. I had never heard of him, but McCarthy and his guest said no one surpassed Mitchell's work for civil rights, and that he was not well known, even among African-Americans, because so much of his contribution was behind closed doors.

Mitchell came from a humble background here in Baltimore, and once worked as a busboy alongside Thurgood Marshall - for Marshall's father. But he did well in school and turned to journalism. As if he needed a reason, Wikipedia ascribes his interest in civil rights to a spurious rape case against black hobos and a lynching:

Mitchell’s decision to advocate civil rights possibly stemmed from his work for the Baltimore Afro-American, a newspaper he did journalistic work for as a young man. Mitchell wrote articles about the infamous Scottsboro case, and also on the lynching of a black man in Cambridge, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. While Mitchell missed the lynching itself, he was there in time to see the fanatical crowd douse the body with gasoline, set it ablaze and drag it through the black neighborhood in the city.

The website, Clarence Mitchell Papers sums up his career:

Clarence Mitchell, Jr., is unique in the pantheon of civil rights history. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 18, 1911, he led the struggle in Washington for passage of the civil rights laws and promulgation of constructive national policies to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans and all other citizens suffering discrimination because of race, national origin, religion, sex, age, or sexual orientation.

So legendary was Clarence Mitchell, Jr., as a civil rights lobbyist in Congress that he was popularly called the “101st senator.” He led the NAACP’s struggle for passage of the civil rights laws and adoption of constructive national policies for the protection of the civil rights of African Americans by the executive branch. This struggle was rooted in the egalitarian philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and shaped by reason and carefully documented factual evidence.

Mitchell was also called The Lion in the Lobby, presumably where he waited for legislators before and after important votes, and the title of an exhaustive biography of him. According to a Publisher's Weekly snippet on Amazon, Mitchell was Director of the NAACP's Washington bureau for 28 years (1950-78), ran unsuccessfully on the Socialist party ticket for the Maryland legislature, later became a political conservative, and died poor in 1984.

For a sense of what Mitchell actually did in 28 years at the NAACP, I scanned through the sample documents:

September 6, 1957

Cliches and defeatism about civil rights legislation bowed to determined effort and hard work in the 85th Congress.

In spite of funeral predictions that the bill would die in the Eastland dominated Judiciary Committee, in spite of the longest and silliest filibuster speech in the Senate’s history, and in the face of numerous tricky obstructions, a right to vote bill was passed on August 29, 1957.

In due time, this legislation will make the Congress itself a more realistic reflection of the American scene because it will guarantee that future southern delegations in the Nation’s highest legislative body will include qualified colored men and women.

When this legislation is enforced, there will be no more flummery about how many bubbles there are in a bar of soap when colored citizens seek the right to register. After the stern restraint of a Federal injunction has been applied, those who used force, economic restrictions, and deception to keep the voting lists lily white will realize that the vote must be given to all without regard to race.

We who assisted at the birth of this legislation and have worked without many of the tools that we needed for success understand that we now have a new weapon against jim crow. We shall see to it that the race issue is blasted from southern politics.

This legislation started out as a four part bill. Each part was designed to perform an important task in the civil rights field.

Part I establishes a commission to get the facts and pave the way for additional Federal legislation.

Part II removes the civil rights function from the broom closet in the U.S. Department of Justice and makes it a vital division headed by an assistant attorney general.

Part IV of the bill gives new protection to the right to vote in time for the Congressional elections of 1958.

All of these are now safely through the Congress.

One of the parts of the bill, which in the opinion of the director is no more or less vital than Part IV, did not get through in this session.[1]
Significance of Part III

Getting some of the friends of civil rights to see the importance of Part III was one of the difficult jobs confronting the bureau when this bill was introduced in the 84th Congress.

Representative Kenneth Keating (R., N.Y.) issued a press release dated September 4, 1957, in which he said of the school crisis at Little Rock, Arkansas.

“The Governor’s action in this case, if it proves unjustified, will point up the necessity for further legislation to protect the Constitutional rights of our citizens . . . Part III . . . would have fulfilled that need by enabling the Federal Government to act in the first instance on behalf of citizens . . . Had the Attorney General been authorized to act from the beginning in the situation in Arkansas, all of this trouble could have been avoided.”

When we were enlisting support for the civil rights bill, there were so many people who professed not to see the advantages of Part III that on April 16, 1957, J. Francis Pohlhaus, Washington Bureau Counsel, expanded previous memoranda he had written on this subject into a comprehensive statement.[2] This statement and the legislative history of Part III were given wide distribution by the bureau after Senator Richard Russell (D., Ga.) pretended to find some hidden deception in Part III.

We have never underestimated the potential good in Part III. The director is happy to report that Representative Emanuel Celler (D., N.Y.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Keating, who is the ranking member for the minority Party, are both pledged to resume the fight to get Part III enacted into law when the next session of Congress begins.

Now that it is clear that a meaningful civil rights bill can pass the Congress, the director hopes that all of the civil rights forces in the country will keep their fire centered on the main target, which is the Congress of the United States.

It is hoped that those who fell by the wayside when many thought our fight was hopeless will now unite with the NAACP in a determined drive to change the following votes in the United States Senate.

Part III was removed by a vote of 52 to 38. If we are to win in the next session of Congress, we must hold what we got in the first session and pick up at least eight additional votes.

Between now and the time Congress meets in January, all who believe in civil rights would do well to concentrate their energies on helping to get as many of the above Senators as possible to pledge that they will make a last ditch, unyielding fight for the new bill which will be introduced in January. This task can be undertaken now while most of these Senators are in their home states.