“The Clock Will Not Be Turned Back” was a speech given by Roy Wilkins as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States. The speech was delivered in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club of California on November 1, 1957, just over a month after the end of the school desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. Founded in 1903 by a group of leading Californians––including the San Francisco Chronicle editorial writer Edward F. Adams and Frederick Burk, president of what would become San Francisco State University—the Commonwealth Club is the nation’s oldest public affairs forum, providing an arena where prominent figures can discuss issues of local, national, and international importance. Previous speakers had included former president Theodore Roosevelt, the film director Cecil B. DeMille, and the philosopher (and founder of the Aspen Institute) Mortimer J. Adler. Until 1971 membership in the club was restricted to men.