National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Organizational History and List of Officers

Organizational History

• 1909: Issued the “Call,” a statement calling for a conference to protest discrimination and violence against African Americans Convened the National Negro Conference on May 31 and June 1, New York, N.Y. Established the Committee on the Negro, also known as the Committee of Forty on Permanent Organization and as the National Negro Committee
• 1910: Adopted the name National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Undertook first major legal case in defending Pink Franklin against a murder charge in South Carolina Published first issue of the magazine Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races
• 1910 - 1934 : Crisis edited by W. E. B. Du Bois
• 1911: Incorporated the NAACP
• 1911 - 1914 : Organized fifty branches throughout the United States
• 1914: Published an open letter to Woodrow Wilson protesting segregation in federal agencies
• 1915: Awarded the first Spingarn Medal to Ernest E. Just for research in biology and physiology Protested the film Birth of a Nation
• 1916: Established an antilynching committee
• 1916 - 1923 : Published the Branch Bulletin
• 1917: Organized the Silent Protest Parade, New York, N.Y.
• 1919: Published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• 1930: Opposed the nomination of John J. Parker to the Supreme Court Retained full-time legal services of Charles Hamilton Houston
• 1934: Resignation of W. E. B. Du Bois
• 1935 - 1948 : Crisis edited by Roy Wilkins
• 1939: Awarded the Spingarn Medal to Marian Anderson
• 1941: Supported proposed March on Washington
• 1942: Opened the Washington Bureau, Washington, D.C.
• 1943: Walter Francis White and Thurgood Marshall submitted reports on riots in Detroit, Mich.
• 1944: Recorded 430,000 memberships, largest in the association's history W. E. B. Du Bois returned to the NAACP Smith v. Allwright voting rights decision
• 1944 - 1945 : Walter Francis White toured European and Pacific theaters of operation during World War II
• 1945: Established position of public relations director Walter Francis White published A Rising Wind. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Co. Moved national office from Fifth Avenue to West Fortieth Street, New York, N.Y.
• 1946: Established Labor Department
• 1947: Established Church Department Elmore v. Ricedecision relating to the Democratic Party primary in South Carolina Harry S. Truman addressed the NAACP's thirty-eighth annual conference, Washington, D.C.
• 1948: W. E. B. Du Bois resigned from the association Closed Veterans Affairs office, Washington, D.C. Sipuel v. Board of Regents decision
• 1949 - 1966 : Crisis edited by James W. Ivy
• 1950: Organized the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization, Washington, D.C. Sweatt v. Painter decision
• 1950 - 1977 : Appointed Clarence Mitchell (1911-1984) head of the Washington Bureau, Washington, D.C.
• 1953: Established Fighting Fund for Freedom
• 1954: Brown v. Board of Education decision
• 1956: Legal Defense Fund reorganized as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., an independent entity Held meeting in Atlanta, Ga., to plan strategy for future desegregation campaigns
• 1957: Central High School, Little Rock, Ark., integrated NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund allowed to retain NAACP as part of its name Awarded the Spingarn Medal to Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 1960: Youth members participated in sit-in demonstrations and defended participants from other organizations
• 1963: Joined other organizations in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Medgar Wiley Evers, NAACP field secretary, murdered in Jackson, Miss. Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) created as a united front by civil rights organizations to register voters in Mississippi
• 1963 - 1964 : Association lawyers participated in the defense of Freedom Riders
• 1964: Established NAACP Special Contribution Fund as a tax-exempt fund Broadcast “Freedom Television Spectacular,” a fund-raising telethon
• 1966 - 1974 : Crisis edited by Henry Lee Moon
• 1967: Roy Wilkins appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders Established the Mississippi Emergency Relief program to alleviate hunger in the state
• 1968: Resignation of the legal staff after the dismissal of Lewis M. Steel by the Board of Directors for publication of his article “Nine Men in Black Who Think White” in the New York Times Magazine Reactivated the Housing Department
• 1969: Established the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Department Created the National Afro-American Builders Corp. Reorganized branches in various large cities into multiple branches as an experiment
• 1971: Established the NAACP National Housing Corp. through which local branches sponsored nonprofit housing programs
• 1975: Crisis edited by Warren Marr
• 1976: Claiborne Hardware Co v. NAACP decision, the Port Gibson, Miss., case that threatened to bankrupt the association
• 1977: Organized NAACP National Energy Conference, Washington, D.C.
• 1978: Awarded the first Walter Francis White Award to Hubert H. Humphrey Received a five-year, $500,000 educational grant from the Rockefeller Foundation Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision Organized NAACP Leadership Summit Conference, Chicago, Ill. Created Afro-Academic Cultural Technical Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) Established Economic Policy Advisory Council
• 1979: Appointed Leroy Mobley director of prison programs Organized Black Leadership Meeting, New York, N.Y.
• 1981: Eight persons arrested in alleged conspiracy to bomb the Baltimore, Md., NAACP branch headquarters
• 1982: Moved national headquarters to 186 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, from 1790 Broadway, New York, N.Y. Established Operation Fair Share program
• 1983: Executive director Benjamin L. Hooks suspended by the chairman of the board, Margaret Bush Wilson, and later reinstated Board of Directors transferred chairman powers to Kelly M. Alexander, Sr.
• 1985: Board of Directors authorized move of national headquarters to Baltimore, Md. Suspicious fire destroyed NAACP branch headquarters in Dover, Del. Created Back-to-School/Stay-in-School program
• 1986: Moved national headquarters to Baltimore, Md., and retained a small office in New York, N.Y. Association sued some of its former salaried lawyers over legal fees
• 1987: Completed “Long-Range Plan: The Year 2000 and Beyond” report
• 1989: Awarded Spingarn Medal to Jesse Jackson
• 1990: Organized the NAACP Conference on the Present Crisis, Washington, D.C.
• 1993: Benjamin L. Hooks resigned as executive director

List of Officers

• 1910 - 1911 : Frances Blascoer, secretary
• 1910 - 1929 : Moorfield Storey, president
• 1911 - 1912 : Mary White Ovington, secretary
• 1912 - 1916 : May Childs Nerney, secretary
• 1916: Mary White Ovington, acting secretary
• 1916 - 1917 : Royal Freeman Nash, secretary
• 1917 - 1918 : James Weldon Johnson, acting secretary
• 1918 - 1920 : James R. Shillady, secretary
• 1920 - 1931 : James Weldon Johnson, secretary
• 1930 - 1939 : Joel Elias Spingarn, president
• 1931 - 1955 : Walter Francis White, secretary and executive secretary
• 1940 - 1965 : Arthur B. Spingarn, president
• 1949 - 1950 : Roy Wilkins, acting secretary
• 1955 - 1964 : Roy Wilkins, executive secretary
• 1965 - 1977 : Roy Wilkins, executive director
• 1966 - 1974 : Kivie Kaplan, president
• 1975 - 1983 : Margaret Bush Wilson, chair, Board of Directors
• 1976 - 1982 : W. Montague Cobb, president
• 1977 - 1993 : Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director
• 1983: James Kemp, president
• 1983 - 1984 : Kelly Alexander, Sr., chair, Board of Directors
• 1984 - 1989 : Enolia P. McMillan, president
• 1985 - 1995 : William F. Gibson, chair, Board of Directors
• 1990 - 1992 : Hazel N. Dukes, president

From the guide to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records, 1842-1999, (bulk 1919-1991), (Manuscript Division Library of Congress)

Agency History (1909-1967)

This chronology covers key events in the NAACP's history, providing a general framework and points of reference for understanding the visual materials in this collection. Listed events do not necessarily correspond to particular visual materials in the collection; some listed events are well covered in the collection, while others are not.

• 1909: Oswald Garrison Villard issues the “Call,” a petition calling for a national conference to discuss means for ending social and civil injustices against African Americans. Out of this effort the National Negro Committee, sometimes referred to as the Committee of Forty, is formed.
• 1910: The National Negro Committee holds its second meeting and changes its name to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. First legal case: Pink Franklin v. State of South Carolina. First issue of the Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, is published with W.E.B. Du Bois serving as editor. First NAACP office opens at 20 Vesey Street, New York, N.Y.
• 1911: NAACP is incorporated in New York, N.Y.
• 1912: First board of directors is selected. Oswald Garrison Villard is appointed chairman of the board of directors.
• 1913: 50 branches in existence.
• 1914: Joel Spingarn is elected chairman of the board of directors, replacing Oswald Garrison Villard. Offices move to 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
• 1915: First Spingarn Medal is awarded to biologist Ernest Just, Howard University Medical School, Washington, D.C.
• 1916: The first Amenia Conference is held at Troutbeck, Joel Spingarn's estate at Amenia, N.Y. James Weldon Johnson is hired as field secretary. Anti-lynching campaign starts with the formation of a committee to raise funds and public awareness about lynching.
• 1917: Silent Protest parade is organized to protest the injustices of discrimination and segregation.
• 1918: John Shillady is appointed executive secretary. Walter White is appointed assistant secretary.
• 1919: NAACP publishes a major study of lynching entitled Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. Anti-lynching Conference is held at Carnegie Hall, New York, N.Y. Memberships total 56,000. Mary White Ovington becomes chairman of the board of directors.
• 1920: James Weldon Johnson is appointed executive secretary. He becomes the first African American to be appointed to this level within the Association. He replaces John Shillady, who resigned after being beaten by a mob in Austin, Texas, while on official business for the Association. William Pickens is appointed field secretary. Offices move to 69 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
• 1922 - 25 : Involvement in various legal cases concerning restrictive convenants, peonage, and voting rights.
• 1927: The Life Membership program is initiated.
• 1929: Moorfield Storey, first president, dies. 325 branches in 44 states. Voting rights, housing, and employment discrimination campaigns accelerate.
• 1930: Joel Spingarn succeeds Moorfield Storey as president. Daisy Lampkin becomes regional field secretary. James Weldon Johnson resigns. NAACP leads a successful campaign against the nomination of Judge John Parker to the United States Supreme Court.
• 1931: Walter White is appointed executive secretary. Roy Wilkins is hired as assistant secretary.
• 1933: Roy Wilkins and George Schuyler investigate working conditions of African Americans employed by the Mississippi Flood Control Project. The second Amenia Conference is held to discuss the social and political progress of African Americans.
• 1934: Campaigns against employment discrimination get underway. Dr. Louis Wright becomes chairman of the board of directors. W.E.B. Du Bois resigns.
• 1935: Roy Wilkins becomes acting editor of the Crisis. Charles Houston is appointed special counsel. Youth councils begin to spring up across the nation.
• 1936: William Pickens becomes director of branches. William English Walling, founding member, dies. NAACP initiates campaigns against unequal salaries for African American teachers--first cases filed in Maryland. Campaigns and legal action to eliminate segregation in education at the college level.
• 1937: Roy Wilkins becomes editor of the Crisis.
• 1938: Thurgood Marshall is appointed special counsel, replacing Charles Houston. E. Frederic Morrow becomes coordinator of branches.
• 1939: Joel Spingarn, president, dies. Legal Defense Fund formed.
• 1940: Campaigns for elimination of discrimination in the armed services. Arthur Spingarn becomes president.
• 1941: Ella Baker joins staff as assistant field secretary. Campaigns against discrimination in defense industries hiring practices. 55 youth councils and 14 college chapters exist.
• 1942: Washington, D.C., bureau is established.
• 1943: Ruby Hurley is appointed youth director. Ella Baker becomes director of branches.
• 1944: W.E.B. Du Bois returns to the Association as director of special research.
• 1945: Offices move to 20 West 40th Street, New York, N.Y.
• 1946: Campaigns against segregation in education continue--a number of new cases filed. Clarence Mitchell is appointed national labor secretary, Washington, D.C., bureau. Ella Baker, director of branches, resigns. Gloster Current succeeds Ella Baker as director of branches.
• 1948: Henry Lee Moon is appointed director of public relations. W.E.B. Du Bois, director of special research, resigns.
• 1949: Walter White, executive secretary, resigns due to poor health. Oswald Garrison Villard, founding member, dies.
• 1950: Clarence Mitchell is appointed director, Washington, D.C., bureau. The National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization meets in Washington, D.C., to support enactment of civil rights laws.
• 1951: “Equality under Law” campaign is initiated to eliminate segregation in elementary and secondary schools.
• 1952: School desegregation cases reach the United States Supreme Court. Dr. Louis Wright, chairman of the board of directors, dies.
• 1953: “Fight for Freedom” campaign is initiated, with the goal to eliminate segregation and discrimination by 1963, the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Organizers vowed to raise $1,000,000 annually through 1963 to help fund the campaign. Channing Tobias is appointed chairman of the board of directors.
• 1954: Brown v. Board of Education decided; the United States Supreme Court decision overturns the “separate but equal” doctrine.
• 1955: Walter White, former executive secretary, dies. Roy Wilkins succeeds Walter White as executive secretary. Memberships surpass 300,000.
• 1956: Legal action is initiated against the NAACP by the states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, challenging the right of the NAACP to operate in those states.
• 1957: Federal court orders Little Rock, Arkansas, to desegregate its schools. Widespread violence breaks out as the first nine African American students try to attend Central High School. Local NAACP leaders Daisy and L.C. Bates direct the strategy for implementing the United States Supreme Court's desegregation orders in Little Rock. Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted through coordinated efforts of the NAACP and other civil rights and labor groups. Prayer Pilgrimage in Washington, D.C., to show support for civil rights.
• 1959: Branches are involved in voter registration campaigns in the South. The Association celebrates its 50th anniversary.
• 1960: Dr. Robert Weaver becomes chairman of the board of directors; he resigns one year later to head the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency.
• 1961: Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood is appointed chairman of the board of directors.
• 1963: Memberships surpass 500,000. Medgar Evers, Mississippi field director, is assassinated. W.E.B. Du Bois dies in Accra, Ghana.
• 1966: Arthur Spingarn, president, retires. Kivie Kaplan is elected president.
• 1967: Offices move to 1790 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

From the guide to the Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records (Library of Congress), ca. 1838-1969, bulk 1944-1955, (Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress)