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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1909, to work on behalf of black people. Members of the NAACP have referred to it as The National Association. This usage suggests NAACP's perceived preeminence among organization active in the American civil rights movement; little need was felt to specify which "national association."

Early history

The NAACP was founded as the National Negro Committee on February 12, 1909, by W.E.B. DuBois, a black man, and twelve Jews.

By 1914, there were 6,000 members and 50 branches of the organization. DuBois edited of The Crisis, the association's magazine, which reached more than 30,000 people.

The organization was one of the leading organizations involved in the American civil rights struggle of the 1960s and 70s.

After Kivie Kaplan died in 1975, Benjamin Hooks, a lawyer and clergyman, was elected executive director in 1977.

The NAACP organized a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith's silent film "Birth of a Nation." The film was criticised as being racist and bigoted.

The Supreme Court ruled in Buchanan vs. Warley that states cannot officially segregate African-Americans into separate residential districts.

The NAACP was influential in winning the right of African-Americans to serve as officers in the World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned, and 700,000 registered for the draft.

Current leadership

As of 2004, the organization's president is Kweisi Mfume, who has served as the leader since February 1996, and the chairman is Julian Bond.

Critics and supporters

Some critics of the NAACP, particularly conservatives, complain that the organization takes liberal positions on issues which either have no obvious relationship to the civil rights struggle or minorities, or which they believe to be at odds with the cause of freedom (the NAACP strongly supports stringent gun control laws, for example).

NAACP supporters cite the disproportionate affect of gun violence on minority communities, and believe that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is intended to protect the right of a state to maintain a militia, not unrestricted individual rights to bear arms.

Bush declines to speak to the NAACP

In 2004, President George W. Bush became the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the NAACP when he declined an invitation to speak. The White House originally said the president had a scheduling conflict with the NAACP convention on July 10-15.

However, on July 10, 2004, Bush said he declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP because of harsh statements about him by its leaders. "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent. You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me." Bush also mentioned his admiration for some members of the NAACP and said he would seek to work with them "in other ways."

Timeline

1909: On February 12, the National Negro Committee was formed. Founders included Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, William English Walling.

1910: The NAACP began court fights with the Pink Franklin case. It involved a black farmhand, who unbeknowingly killed a policeman in self-defense when the officer broke into his home at 3 a.m. to arrest him on a civil charge.

1913: The NAACP protested President Woodrow Wilson's official introduction of segregation to the federal government.

1915: The NAACP organizes a nationwide protest D.W. Griffith's racially inflammatory and bigoted silent film, "Birth of a Nation."

1917: In Buchanan vs. Warley, the U.S. Supreme Court has to concede that states can not 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 register for the draft..

1918: After pressure by the NAACP, President Woodrow Wilson makes a public statement against lynching.

1920: To ensure that everyone, especially the Klan, knew that the NAACP would not be intimidated, the annual conference was held in Atlant, considered one of the most active areas of the Ku Klux Klan.

1922: The NAACP places large ads in major newspapers to present the facts about lynching.

1930: The first of successful protests by the NAACP against Supreme Court justice nominees is begun against John Parker, who favored laws that discriminated against African-Americans.

1935: NAACP lawyers Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall win a legal fight to admit a black student to the University of Maryland.

1939: After the Daughters of the American Revolution barred acclaimed soprano Marian Anderson from performing at their Constitution Hall, the NAACP moved her concert to the Lincoln Memorial, where more than 75,000 people attended.

1941: During , the NAACP led the effort to ensure that President Franklin Roosevelt orders a nondiscrimination policy in war-related industries and federal employment.

1954: After years of fighting segregation in public schools, under the leadership of special counsel Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP won Brown vs. the Board of Education. The decision barred school segregation.

1955: NAACP member and volunteer Rosa Parks is arrested and fined for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.This action became a catalyst for the largest grassroots civil rights movement in the U.S., which would be spearheaded through the collective efforts of the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other black organizations.

1960: In Greensboro, North Carolina, members of the NAACP Youth Council launch a series of non-violent sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. These protests eventually lead to more than 60 stores officially desegregating their counters.

1963: After one of his many successful mass rallies for civil rights, NAACP's first field director, Medgar Evers, is assassinated in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

1963: The NAACP pushes for the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.

1964: The U.S. Supreme Court ends the eight-year effort of Alabama officials to ban NAACP activities.

1965: Amidst threats of violence and efforts of state and local governments, the NAACP registers more than 80,000 voters in the South.

1979: The NAACP initiates the first bill ever signed by a governor that allows voter registration in high schools. Soon after, 24 states follow suit.

1981: The NAACP leads the effort to extend the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. To cultivate economic empowerment, the NAACP establishes the Fair Share Program with major corporations across the country.

1982: NAACP registers more than 850,000 voters, and through its protests and the support of the Supreme Court, prevents President Ronald Reagan from giving a tax break to the racially segregated Bob Jones University.

1985: The NAACP leads a major anti-apartheid rally in New York City.

1989: the NAACP holds a "Silent March" of over 100,000 to protest U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have reversed many of the gains made against discrimination.

1991: When avowed Klan leader David Duke runs for U.S. Senate in Louisiana, the NAACP started a voter registration campaign that yielded a 76 percent turnout of black voters to defeat Duke.

1985: Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers, is elected to lead the NAACP's board of directors.

1996: Kweisi Mfume leaves the U.S. House of Representatives to become the president of the NAACP.

1996: Responding to anti-affirmative action legislation occurring around the country, the NAACP starts the Economic Reciprocity Program. And in response to increased violence among our youth, the NAACP starts the "Stop The Violence, Start the Love" campaign.

2000: Accomplishments include television diversity agreements, and largest black voter turnout in 20 years.

2000: On January 17, in Columbia, South Carolina, more than 50,000 people attended a march to protest the flying of the Confederate battle flag. It was the largest civil rights demonstration ever held in the South at that time.

See also

• NAACP v. Alabama
• Niagara Movement
• NAACP Image Award

References

• Renewal of Kweisi Mfume's contract to serve as president of the NAACP

External links

• Official site

Sources and further reading

• Finch, Minnie. The NAACP: Its Fight for Justice. Scarecrow Press, 1981.

• Harris, Jacqueline L. History and Achievements of the NAACP (The African American Experience). 1992.

• Kellogg, Charles Flint. NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Johns Hopkins University Press: 1973. ISBN 0801815541.

• Ovington, Mary White, et al. Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder. Feminist Press: 1995. ISBN 1558610995.

• Pitre, Merline. In Struggle Against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957. Texas A&M Press: 1999. ISBN 0890968691 .

• St. James, Warren D. NAACP: Triumphs of a Pressure Group, 1909 - 1980. Exposition Press, 1980.

• Tushnet, Mark V. The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950. UNC Press: 1987. ISBN 0807841730.

• Wedin, Carolyn. Inheritors of the Spirit: Mary White Ovington and the Founding of the NAACP. Wiley Publishers: 1999. ISBN 0471327247.

• Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Temple University Press: 1980. ISBN 087722174X.

• Political advocacy groups in the U.S.
• U.S. civil rights history
• Civil Rights