Commemorating the founding of the NAACP

Published 12:01 am Friday, February 12, 2021

On this day, Feb. 12, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

As a formal response to the August 1908 race riots in Springfield, Illinois, (ironically Abraham Lincoln’s resting place) a group of white business and community leaders joined with a group of African American leaders to form the organization that stands today.

The precursor to the NAACP started in 1905 with a core group of those African Americans, led by W.E.B. Du Bois, through what was known as the Niagara Movement. This movement was started in a secret meeting on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls with the purpose of addressing the suffering and unjust treatment of Black people. The movement produced a manifesto that called for the full recognition of the political, civil and social rights of all AfricanAmericans. In other words, a call was made for America to uphold her obligation to the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The Niagara Movement had a few victories with impacting change at small scale, lacking the connections and financial resources to attract mass support for overall systemic change. The support of the masses came immediately following the above-mentioned Springfield riots where two Black men were falsely accused of raping two white women and were being transferred away from their current prison location for their protection. The white residents were furious and began attacking Black neighborhoods for two days with mob-style violence.

The white consciousness of those with a compassion for humanity had been awakened from their complicity to do something.

They were able to bring the resources needed to advance the agenda of the Niagara Movement and thereby en-grafting those of the movement into the newly formed NAACP.

The mission was and still is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights for all minority groups and to eliminate race-based discrimination through democratic processes.

The founders of the NAACP are:

• W.E.B. Du Bois

• Archibald Grimke

• Henry Moskowitz

• Mary White Ovington

• Oswald Garrison Villard

• Lillian Wald

• William English Walling

• Ida B. Wells

Happy 112th anniversary to the NAACP.