The national office was established in New York City in 1910 as well as a board of directors and president, Moorfield Storey, a white constitutional lawyer and former president of the American Bar Association. The NAACP works to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes. Accordingly, the NAACP's mission is to ensure the political, educational, equality of minority group citizens of States and eliminate race prejudice. On February 12, 1909, the nation's largest and most widely recognized civil rights organization was born.Įchoing the focus of Du Bois' Niagara Movement for civil rights, which began in 1905, NAACP aimed to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, provide equal protection of the law, and the right for all men to vote, respectively. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Appalled at this rampant violence, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard (both the descendants of famous abolitionists), William English Walling and Dr. In 1908, a deadly race riot rocked the city of Springfield, eruptions of anti-black violence – particularly lynching – were horrifically commonplace, but the Springfield riot was the final tipping point that led to the creation of the NAACP. Since our founding in 1909, we have been, and continue to be, on the front lines of the fight for civil rights and social justice.

Our work and our activists carrying the civil rights torch forward are our legacy.

The tipping point chapters