of public interest, and to establish a basis of fact, reasoned policy, and even of science, for its future conduct" (NAACP pamphlet, 1984, cited in The Crisis, 1994, p. 29). Hardly a radical, militant organization, the NAACP of 1909 was highly rational, calculating, and intent upon achieving social justice through the legal system. A strong belief in the Constitution itself would ironically bring about the legal arguments needed to change unjust laws which denied African Americans equality.
In their "The NAACP as a Reform Movement, 1909-1965," Meier & Bracey (1993) relate the history of the organization from its origins in the Progressive movement to the victories achieved in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (p. 1). In effect, their recounting of the birth and germinal years of the organization illuminates the history of American reform in the twentieth century. Born in 1909 on the fringes of Progressive Era reform, the Association singlemindedly kept to its original goal of securing the basic citizenship rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution (Meier & Bracey, 1993, p. 4). However, as has been mentioned, the organization was overwhelmingly practical by nature. The NAACP proved to be a flexible organization, modifying its tactics and strategies to meet the challenges of the changing economic and political environment in which it operated. For example, according to Meier & Bracey (1993), "beginning with the Great Depression and the New Deal, the NAACP was able to incorporate into its program new economic concerns without altering its basic goal" (p. 4). In fact, amid the reform impulses unleashed during the depression and World War II, the NAACP flourished.
During the war, the NAACP's membership and staff grew to unprecedented size. Its legal arm, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., won a series of stunning victories be...