Founding of NAACP

People

W. E. B. Du Bois; Mary White Ovington; Moorfield Storey; Ida B. Wells; Lillian Wald; Emil G. Hirsch; Henry Moskowitz

Outcome

unknown

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909 by an interracial coalition of activists in response to the ongoing violence and discrimination against African Americans, particularly the 1908 Springfield, Illinois race riot. The organization's founding date of February 12, 1909—the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth—marks when Oswald Garrison Villard authored a call to action signed by prominent activists including W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, urging Americans to attend a national conference on the rights of African Americans. The Springfield riot served as the immediate catalyst for the NAACP's formation. In August 1908, a white mob in Abraham Lincoln's hometown organized to lynch two Black men, Joe James and George Richardson, who had been accused without clear evidence of murder and assault. When the mob failed to locate them, they lynched two other Black men instead—Scott Burton and William Donnegan—and raged for days, burning Black homes and businesses. The violence in Lincoln's own city shocked many white progressives into action. The first National Negro Conference was held at Charity Organization Hall in New York City from May 31 to June 1, 1909, with approximately 300 attendees. This conference established the National Negro Committee, which drew heavily from members of the Niagara Movement, a group of Black activists led by W.E.B. Du Bois who opposed Booker T. Washington's philosophy of accommodation. At the second annual meeting on May 12, 1910, the organization formally adopted the name "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." The NAACP pledged to "promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice" and to advance employment opportunities and educational access for African Americans. The organization's first officers (elected 1910) included National President Moorfield Storey, a white constitutional lawyer and former American Bar Association president; Chairman of the Executive Committee William English Walling; and Director of Publicity and Research W.E.B. Du Bois, the only African American among the executives. Du Bois launched *The Crisis* magazine in November 1910 as the organization's official publication, which grew to become one of the most influential Black publications in America. The NAACP quickly achieved significant legal victories, including *Guinn v. United States* (1915), which struck down Oklahoma's grandfather clause, and *Buchanan v. Warley* (1917), which ruled residential segregation ordinances unconstitutional. Membership grew from approximately 9,000 in 1917 to 90,000 by 1919, with over 300 local branches established by 1913.