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countering this kind of retreat, seems to me to be, if not quiet - well, I guess they are quiet. They certainly are impotent.

The leadership of the NAACP is embarrassingly impotent.

Is this because of the new leadership? The death of Roy Wilkins?

Yes. I think that the civil rights movement has suffered tremendously from the loss of major leaders, such as Roy and Martin and Whitney Young. Not only those who have died, but those who have been taken over into the government. For example, we did consider it a major advance when Thurgood Marshall was made a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. That was a major advance. However, Thurgood Marshall is no longer available to be in the forefront of countering directly the regressions of this administration. He has to-- understandably he has to function as a member of the Court and wait until problems are brought before the Supreme Court. Thurgood has been particularly vigilant and proper, more so than many of the other members of the Court, in not making any public statements on issues which might be considered improper for a Supreme Court Justice. But he is no longer available as an advocate or a leader in the struggle. This is true of a number of other of our lawyers: Spottswood Robinson, Connie [Constance] Motley, Robert Carter. You put that together with the loss of the kind of leadership that Whitney and Roy and Martin-- and even Malcolm X-- you know,