NAACP and African American civil rights
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 02-06-17 14:49
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- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- First major organisation
- Early 20th Century
- Not predominantly led by AAs
- Originated from concerns about race riots and lynchings expressed in Niagra Movement
- Included:
- W. E. B. Du Bois
- Only senior black committee member
- Ida Wells
- Liberal white social reformers and campaigners
- W. E. B. Du Bois
- Founded in 1909, name chosen in 1910
- Aims
- Suffragette rights
- Equal justice
- Better education
- Equality before law
- Employment opportunities according to ability
- Organisation more for African Americans than run by them and initially dominated with Jewish white liberals
- Main thrust of its campaigns were legal
- Target to challenge Jim Crow laws of South
- Run contrary to constitutional amendments
- Campaigned in relatively restrained way against President Wilson's policy of segregating federal employment
- In favour of allowing AAs to serve as officers in armed forces
- Target to challenge Jim Crow laws of South
- Established:
- 50 local branches
- A journal
- Set up marches in protest against:
- film: The Birth of a Nation
- Race riots in St Louis in 1917
- Did not recruit mass following:
- Only had 6000 members by 1915
- Used middle-class membership more for legal challenges against voting restrictions in South
- Effectively blocked moves to make segregation of AAs into distinct districts illegal in 1917
- 1920s
- A more dynamic recruitment policy led to an increase in membership in 1920s
- Law remained its main tactic
- Defended AAs sentenced to death in Arkansas after rioting, who claimed they had been tortured
- Publicised evils of lynching
- A more dynamic recruitment policy led to an increase in membership in 1920s
- NAACP's achievements were relatively modest
- Achieved Supreme Court ruling in 1944 that it was illegal to deny AAs right to vote in primary elections
- Its long and steady legal campaigns increased role and reputation of black lawyer Thurgood Marshall
- There was steady attack on segregation, which culminated in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling in 1954
- Actual enforcement of policy was beyond resources of NAACP
- Local activists spearheaded one of most significant developments of post-war period in 1955, when Rosa Parks challenged segregated bus regulations in Montgomery, Alabama
- Her arrest was quickly followed by issue of 52,000 leaflets calling for bus boycott
- Changed nature of NAACP's work and introduced idea of using organisation and economic pressure and also exploiting publicity of celebrated case
- However, when NAACP was barred from Alabama all it could do was challenge decision in courts and leave state until 1958
- Opened way for more dynamic local organisations using mass campaigning
- Thus, 1955 bus boycott was high points but also indication of limitations of NAACP
- Opened way for more dynamic local organisations using mass campaigning
- It was instrumental in campaign in 1959 to integrate schools in Little Rock
- Most famous incidents of 1950s were work of NAACP
- But after its participation in March on Washington in 1963, which it did much to organise, its days of greatness seemed to be over
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