National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is mentioned in a newspaper report of a Pasadena procession led by Reverend Martin Luther King. Though the reference is brief, it brings the organization’s public presence into a page otherwise crowded with international affairs, nuclear testing, and local tragedy.

Appearance in the Narrative

The organization enters the story through the front page of the Los Angeles Times. Among reports on meetings involving national leaders and a hydrogen-bomb test in the Pacific, and brief items about an avalanche near Malibu, the paper notes a procession in Pasadena led by Reverend Martin Luther King.

The Pasadena Procession

The report characterizes the procession as composed and dignified. The novel gives no further account of its participants, purpose, or consequences; instead, the brief item situates the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People within the surrounding news and public life of the scene.