On February 12, 1909, on the 100th anniversary of Abraham
Lincoln's birthday, sixty prominent black and white citizens issued "The Call" for a national conference in New York City to renew "the struggle for civil and political liberty." Principal among these was W.E.B. DuBois, who formed the Niagara Movement which drew up an agenda for aggressive action not unlike the group he now joined.

Also involved was Ida Wells-Barnett, a young journalist, whose eloquent editorials focused national attention on the epidemic of lynching. Participants at the conference agreed to work toward the abolition of forced segregation, promotion of equal education and civil rights under the protection of law, and an end to race violence. In 1911, that organization was incorporated as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - the NAACP.

A Voice for Change
For 90 years, the NAACP, through political pressure, marches, demonstrations and effective lobbying - has served as the voice, of African Americans. As the nation's largest advocacy organization, our prolonged agitation for peaceful change has been felt in every aspect of American life.

Born in response to racial violence, the Association's first major campaign was the effort to get the anti-lynching laws on the books. In 1919, to awaken the national conscience, the Association published an exhaustive review of lynching records entitled, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. NAACP leaders, at potential risk to their own lives, conducted first-hand investigations of racially motivated violence which were widely publicized.

Though bills passed the House of Representatives several times, they were always defeated in the Senate. Nonetheless, NAACP efforts brought an end to the excesses of mob violence through public exposure and the public pressure it mobilized.

In the 1930's, as lynching declined, the NAACP shifted its focus from racial brutality to the grim economic conditions produced by the Great Depression.

The Association lobbied fiercely against racial discrimination in New Deal programs. Only the imminent threat of a national march on Washington led to FDR's Executive Order to create a Fair Employment Practices Committee and to ban racial discrimination in industries which received federal contracts. The door to new employment opportunities had opened slightly.

As the nation threw itself into World War II, the NAACP launched a "second war" to end discrimination and segregation in the Armed Services, while expanding employment opportunities on the home front. Though unable to obtain the creation of racially mixed voluntary units, the NAACP affected formation of the nation's first black Air Force units. It was not until 1948 that President Truman issued an Executive Order prohibiting racial discrimination in the federal service. Through the Association's sustained pressure, the desegregation of the armed forces had become inevitable.

While Brown v. Board of Education proved the end of a long struggle, it also marked the beginning of a new one. Despite attempts to outlaw the NAACP throughout the South, the Association pressed ahead with voter registration, sit-in demonstrations (the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City pioneered the tactic in 1958), and grassroots protests of injustice. One memorable example took place in Alabama in 1955. NAACP Montgomery Branch Secretary Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. This defiant act triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott and another chapter in the civil rights struggle.

The NAACP's creation of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
- a coalition of civil rights organizations - institutionalized broad-based
support for the struggle and was crucial to the Association's drive to
win passage of civil rights legislation in Congress. It began with the
1957 Civil Rights Acts - the first since Reconstruction. Subsequently,
the NAACP-led coalition produced the Civil Rights Acts of 1960 and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 1968 Fair Housing Act
- laws which ensured government protection for legal victories going
back some 75 years. In one decade, a non-violent social revolution
had transformed American society.

The NAACP brought other changes through public pressure and
raised consciousness. Since our protest of Birth of a Nation in 1915,
we have long fought to end the racial stereotypes that create misunderstanding and prejudice.

We have worked to change attitudes, laws, and institutions for the good of all Americans. We have repeatedly rejected the voices of hate and separatism, seeking to bind old wounds and unify our nation. Today, after years of unrelenting struggle, were affirm our commitment to the true American Dream - an integrated society rich in diversity and open equally to all.

The struggle continues and we invite all Americans to stand with us - Native-American, black, white, and Hispanic, young and old, Jew and Gentile, male and female.

Wherever Americans of good will and decency reside - they are welcome to join our ranks until freedom for all is won.

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