Adult Education Program of the NAACP

Abstract

Adult education implies a furthering of the knowledge of and utilization of those instruments vital to social betterment. It must (a) give information; (b) instruct in the to do and how to live aspects. In the United States, such instruction programs are divided into as many varied phases as people in separate sections of the country demand. The problems of living arising daily gave rise to increased need for the promoting of such instruction. Adult education as a movement can be distinguished from programs outlined by specific national and local organizations in that it deals primarily with individual improvement. The banding together of persons whose goal is selfimprovement and consequently improved standards of group welfare makes any adult education program the outgrowth of people themselves. The special problems and interests of the Negro can readily be utilized as a basis for profitable educational experience. The goal of such instruction is two-fold and must impress not only that designed to promote American ideals, but also goals of special racial interests. Such a program must of necessity include as its counterpart a comparable educational project for majority groups. Instruction in the achievements and maladjustments of the Negro in American life is a preliminary to all interracial understanding. The elements of any adult education program are comprised of a leader, a knowledge of the subject, a methodology for goal achievement. It might seem at first glance that an organization like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People could not be classified as an adult education force. All too frequently associations of this type concern themselves more with sponsoring organizational activity than with spreading information designed to benefit the individual. But the NAACP, as its name implies, not only promotes activities to better the status of the Negro and other minority groups in the body politic, but also provides instruction through group activity which enables individuals to elevate themselves. This qualifies the association as an instrument functioning in the adult education field. The machinery through which the program is carried out consists primarily of the more than 800 local branches, youth councils and college chapters of the association located in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Directing the activity is the national headquarters in New York, the Washington Bureau in the national capital, and, recently, the West Coast regional office in San Francisco. Last winter leadership training conferences were held in New York, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Kansas City, and San Francisco. To these meetings came local leaders,