The NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has been active since 1909 in its attempts to break legal ground and forge better opportunities for African Americans. The history, function, purpose, and current activities of the organization will be examined. It will be apparent that the NAACP stands as one of the progressive movement in America's major victories against legal, and thus political, oppression.
Early in 1909, some twenty persons met together in New York City for the purpose of utilizing the public interest in the Lincoln Centennial in behalf of African Americans, then known as colored people, or Negroes. Within a few weeks this number was enlarged to about fifty, one-third of whom were from other cities than New York. According to the NAACP's 1984 pamphlet commemorating highlights of NAACP history, "From the outset, this committee was composed of white and colored people alike, and represented the most varied opinions; all agreed only in the feeling that no one of the great efforts now being made by the Negroes, or by whites on their behalf, or all of them put together, fully responded to the needs of the situation" (NAACP, 1984, cited in The Crisis, 1994, p. 28).
It was the opinion of all the members of the preliminary committee, and also of everyone of those interested in the Conference, that the most neglected side of the African American's welfare is the right to civil and political equality, recognized only in part for nearly half a century since 1909 in the U.S.--a right clearly expressed in the Constitution.
The same unanimity that prevailed in regard to the main objects of the new organization extended also to its choice of methods. It was decided that a series of conferences would be the best means to attract the attention of all those who might become interested in the proposed organization, "to put the present situation of the Negro in its entirety in the foreground ...