Overview
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization established through an interracial coalition of Black activists, reformers, journalists, attorneys, clergy members, social workers, and other advocates. Founded in 1909, it is generally recognized as the oldest major civil rights organization in the United States.
The organization was created to oppose racial violence, segregation, disenfranchisement, discrimination, and the denial of equal protection under law. Throughout its history, it has used litigation, legislation, public education, investigation, membership organization, lobbying, protest, and political participation to pursue civil and human rights.
Historical Conditions
The NAACP emerged during a period of entrenched racial segregation, disenfranchisement, mob violence, and lynching. The constitutional protections promised to African Americans after the Civil War were routinely denied through Jim Crow laws, discriminatory government action, private violence, and unequal treatment within courts, schools, housing, employment, and elections.
The immediate catalyst for the organization was the Springfield Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois. White mobs attacked Black residents, destroyed homes and businesses, and forced many families to flee. The violence was especially significant because it occurred in Abraham Lincoln's hometown and demonstrated that racial terror was not confined to the American South.
The NAACP also drew intellectual and organizational influence from the Niagara Movement, founded in 1905 under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. The Niagara Movement demanded immediate civil rights, voting rights, equal education, freedom of speech, and full citizenship rather than gradual accommodation to racial inequality.
Formation
1908: Demand for a National Organization
Journalist and reformer William English Walling investigated the Springfield riot and publicly called for a large national organization to defend Black Americans and revive the abolitionist struggle for political and social equality.
January 1909: Initial Planning
Walling met in New York with social worker Mary White Ovington and civic leader Henry Moskowitz. They formed the nucleus of the organizing group and began planning a national conference on racial justice and civil rights.
February 12, 1909: “The Call”
The organizers issued a public statement known as “The Call” on February 12, 1909, the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Written primarily by journalist and publisher Oswald Garrison Villard, it invited supporters of democracy to meet, protest racial injustice, and renew the struggle for civil and political liberty.
Approximately sixty prominent Americans signed the statement. The date of its release is traditionally recognized as the founding date of the NAACP.
May 31–June 1, 1909: National Conference
The National Negro Conference convened in New York City. Participants created a continuing body initially known as the National Negro Committee and began developing a permanent organization, leadership structure, and civil rights program.
1910: Formal Organization
At the second annual conference in 1910, the organization adopted the name National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It established its national office in New York City, formed a board of directors, and selected constitutional attorney Moorfield Storey as its first national president.
Founding Members and Early Leaders
The NAACP was founded by a coalition rather than by one individual. Historical accounts distinguish among the small planning group, the signers of “The Call,” the participants in the founding conferences, and the officers who built the permanent organization.
Principal Organizers
- Mary White Ovington — Social worker, journalist, organizer, and one of the principal architects of the association. She served in several senior offices and helped maintain the organization's stability.
- William English Walling — Journalist and socialist reformer whose investigation of the Springfield riot helped initiate the call for a national civil rights organization.
- Henry Moskowitz — Civic reformer and member of the initial planning group that organized the national conference.
- Oswald Garrison Villard — Journalist and publisher who drafted “The Call” and assisted in organizing the new association.
Prominent Black Founders and Signers
- W. E. B. Du Bois — Scholar, writer, Niagara Movement leader, founding member, and the NAACP's first director of publicity and research. He founded and edited the association's journal, The Crisis.
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett — Journalist, anti-lynching investigator, suffragist, and civil rights organizer whose work exposed racial terror.
- Mary Church Terrell — Educator, writer, suffragist, and civil rights leader who signed “The Call.”
- Francis J. Grimké — Presbyterian minister, civil rights advocate, and signer of the founding call.
- Archibald Grimké — Attorney, diplomat, writer, and early advocate within the organization.
Other Founding and Early Participants
Other notable founders, signers, officers, and early supporters included Moorfield Storey, Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Lillian Wald, John Dewey, Joel Spingarn, Arthur Spingarn, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary B. Talbert, John Haynes Holmes, Charles Edward Russell, Ray Stannard Baker, Inez Milholland, and Fanny Garrison Villard.
Stated Purpose
Original Purpose
The NAACP was formed to secure the civil and political rights of African Americans and to eliminate the systems that denied them full citizenship. Its founding platform identified several principal objectives:
- End racial segregation and legally enforced inequality.
- Eliminate race-based discrimination in public and private life.
- Protect voting rights and oppose Black disenfranchisement.
- Oppose lynching, mob violence, and other forms of racial terror.
- Secure equal protection and due process under the law.
- Defend the rights guaranteed by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
- Advance equal access to education, employment, housing, and public institutions.
Modern Mission
The NAACP states that its mission is to secure political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights, eliminate race-based discrimination, and promote the health and well-being of all persons. Its modern public language also emphasizes building Black political power and ending structural racism.
Methods and Strategy
The NAACP has generally worked through organized, institutional, and democratic methods. Its principal methods have included:
- Litigation: Challenging discriminatory laws and government practices in state and federal courts.
- Legislative Advocacy: Lobbying for civil rights laws, voting protections, anti-lynching legislation, and equal public policy.
- Investigation and Publicity: Documenting racial violence, discrimination, and official misconduct and presenting the findings to the public.
- Membership Organization: Establishing state conferences, local branches, youth councils, and college chapters.
- Political Participation: Supporting voter registration, civic education, election participation, and government accountability.
- Peaceful Protest: Using boycotts, marches, mass meetings, petitions, and other nonviolent public actions.
Historical Development
Anti-Lynching Campaigns
During its early decades, the NAACP documented lynchings, investigated mob violence, organized national publicity campaigns, and pressed Congress to enact federal anti-lynching legislation. Its New York headquarters became known for displaying a flag declaring, “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday,” after reported lynchings.
Legal Challenges to Jim Crow
The association challenged laws and practices that restricted voting, enforced residential segregation, excluded Black citizens from juries, and denied equal educational opportunity. This legal strategy produced important precedents against state-sponsored racial discrimination.
School Desegregation
NAACP attorneys developed a sustained legal campaign against segregated public education. This campaign culminated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that state-mandated racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause.
The Civil Rights Era
During the mid-twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP continued litigation and legislative advocacy while supporting local organizers, plaintiffs, demonstrators, and allied civil rights organizations. It played a major role in the broader campaigns that led to federal civil rights and voting-rights legislation.
Continuing Work
The organization continues to address voting rights, criminal justice, education, economic opportunity, health, environmental justice, political representation, and other issues affecting Black communities and equal citizenship.
Organizational Identity
The NAACP is a membership-based civil rights association with national, state, and local organizational units. It should be distinguished from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, commonly called the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. The LDF began within the NAACP in 1940 but became a separate and independent organization in 1957.