The History of the NAACP
Founded Feb. 12. 1909
The NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots, civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by a multiracial group of activists, who answered "The Call," in the New York City, NY. They initially called themselves the National Negro Committee.
Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, William English Walling led the "Call" to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty. Some 60 people signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln's birth.
The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln.
Echoing the focus of Du Bois' Niagara Movement which began in 1905, the NAACP's stated goal was to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, the equal protection of the law, and universal adult male suffrage, respectively.
The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes.
The NAACP established its national office in New York City in 1910.
Here are just a few of the actions taken by the NAACP in the first ten years. I am reminded of the courage that it must have taken to stand up against racism and injustice in those very turbulent times.
1910 - In the face of intense adversity, the NAACP begins its legacy of fighting legal battles addressing social injustice with the Pink Franklin case, which involved a Black farmhand, who unknowingly killed a policeman in self-defense when the officer broke into his home at 3 a.m. to arrest him on a civil charge. After losing at the Supreme Court, the following year the renowned NAACP official Joel Spingarn and his brother Arthur start a concerted effort to fight such cases.
1913 - President Woodrow Wilson officially introduces segregation into the Federal Government. Horrified that the President would sanction such a policy, the NAACP launched a public protest.
1915 - The NAACP organizes a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith’ s racially inflammatory and bigoted silent film, "Birth of a Nation."
1917 - In Buchanan vs. Warley, the Supreme Court has to concede that states cannot restrict and officially segregate African Americans into residential districts. Also, the NAACP fights and wins the battle to enable African Americans to be commissioned as officers in World War I. Six hundred officers are commissioned, and 700,000 registered for the draft.
1918
- After persistent pressure by the NAACP, President Woodrow Wilson finally makes a public statement against lynching.
The NAACP waged a 30-year campaign against lynching. Most credit the resulting public debate—fueled by the NAACP report “Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1919”—with drastically decreasing the incidence of lynching.
1920 - To ensure that everyone, especially the Klan, knew that the NAACP would not be intimidated, the annual conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia, considered one of the most active Klan areas.
1930 - During the Great Depression of the 1930s, which was disproportionately disastrous for African Americans, the NAACP began to focus on economic justice.
President Roosevelt ultimately agreed to open thousands of jobs to black workers when the NAACP supported labor leader A. Philip Randolph and his March on Washington movement in 1941. It continued to act as a legislative and legal advocate, pushing for a federal anti-lynching law and for an end to state-mandated segregation.
Civil Rights Era: By the 1950s the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, headed by Thurgood Marshall, secured the last of these goals through Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed segregation in public schools. The NAACP's Washington, D.C., bureau, led by lobbyist Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., helped advance not only integration of the armed forces in 1948 but also passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964, and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Despite such dramatic courtroom and congressional victories, the implementation of civil rights was a slow, painful, and often violent. The unsolved 1951 murder of Harry T. Moore, a NAACP field secretary in Florida, and his wife was just one of many crimes of retribution against the NAACP and its staff and members.
NAACP Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie also became high-profile targets for pro-segregationist violence and terrorism. In 1962, their home was firebombed. In 1963, Medgar was assassinated by a sniper in front of their residence. This was following years of investigations into hostility against blacks and participation in non-violent demonstrations such as sit-ins to protest the persistence of Jim Crow segregation throughout the south.
The NAACP posted bail for hundreds of Freedom Riders in the ‘60s who had traveled to Mississippi to register black voters and challenge Jim Crow policies.
Led by Roy Wilkins, who succeeded Walter White as secretary in 1955, the NAACP cooperated with organizers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin in planning the 1963 March on Washington.
With the passage of major civil rights legislation the following year, the Association accomplished what seemed an insurmountable task. In the following years, the NAACP began to diversify its goals.
Close of the first century: Millions of African Americans continued to be afflicted by urban poverty, crime increased, de facto racial segregation remained and job discrimination lingered throughout the United States, proving the need for continued NAACP advocacy and action.
Heading into the 21st century, the NAACP is focused on disparities in economics, health care, education, voter empowerment and the criminal justice system while also continuing its role as legal advocate for civil rights issues.
Yet the real story of the nation's most significant civil rights organization lies in the hearts and minds of the people who would not stand idly. While much of NAACP history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets and magazines, the true movement lies in the faces---black, white, yellow, red, and brown---united to awaken the consciousness of a people and a nation. The NAACP will remain vigilant in its mission until the promise of America is made real for all Americans.
One hundred years later there are still people who take the time to fight against injustice and who have the courage to stand up for what is right.
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