NAACP
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. Founded in 1909, the group is best known for its work on behalf of blacks. Members of the NAACP have referred to it as The National Association; this usage demonstrates NAACP's preeminence among civil rights 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. Its founding members were a group fo 13 activists; W.E.B. DuBois was the only black while the other twelve were Jews. By 1914, there were 6,000 members and 50 branches of the organization. DuBois was the editor 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.
Following the death of Kivie Kaplan in 1975, Benjamin Hooks, an attorney and clergyman, was elected Executive Director of the association in 1977.
The Pink Franklin case in 1910.
The NAACP organizes a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffiths silent film Birth of a Nation. The film was criticised for being racist and bigoted.
The Supreme Court rules in Buchanan vs. Warley that states cannot officially segregate African Americans into separate residential districts.
The NAACP is influential in winning the right of African Americans to serve as officers in the First World War. Six hundred African American officers are commissioned out of 700,000 who register for the draft.
Current Leadership
As of 2004, the President of the organization is Kweisi Mfume, who has served as their leader since February, 1996, and the Chairman of the association is Julian Bond.
Critics and supporters
Some critics of the NAACP, particularly conservatives, complain that the organization takes progressive 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 cite the Supreme Court's position that the 2nd amendment is about 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 stated that the President had a scheduling conflict with the NAACP convention's July 10-15 meeting dates. However, on July 10, 2004, President Bush admitted that 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 that he would seek to work with them "in other ways."
See also
References
External links
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, Nineteen Hundred and Nine Thru Nineteen Hundred and Eighty. 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 NAAC. Wiley Publishers: 1999. ISBN 0471327247.
- Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Temple University Press: 1980. ISBN 087722174X.