As NAACP meets, there is talk of marches and demonstrations again

Concerned over the possible erosion of civil-rights gains over the past decades, the nation's leading black organization may return to the strategies that helped win those gains -- marches, demonstrations, and other forms of public protest.

The mood of delegates to the 72nd national convention of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which opened here June 29, is that legal action is too slow. The desire for "hitting the street" is growing among many of the activists of years past as well as among the growing and impatient youth contingent in college branches. They are demanding more forceful action.

"Branches want to act -- and will act," said Julian Bond, the controversial Georgia state senator who spearheaded the NAACP drive against what it calls the upsurge of the KU Klux Klan. "There's a growing move toward street activity -- well disciplined, of course -- in Georgia. Branches in Alabama and South Carolina are doing likewise. If our US senators do not act and speak favorably in behalf of voting rights, we shall meet them in the streets or in their suites."

Convention delegates began expressing their mood after hearing President Reagan speak on the opening day of the week-long session. They voted an emergency resolution calling for the NAACP to cosponsor a solidarity- day protest and march with the AFL-CIO Sept. 19 in Washington. The resolution also charges the national office to coordinate the participation of branches and you th units in this demonstration for jobs, justice, and equity