National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Seattle Branch

The Seattle Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), established on October 23, 1913, was the first branch of the national civil rights organization formed west of the Mississippi. The Seattle Branch charter names the Association's objective "to uplift the colored men and women of this country by securing to them the full enjoyment of their rights as citizens, justice in the courts, and equality of opportunity everywhere". Leticia Graves, first Chapter president, along with twenty-one other founding members, made it their first task to protest President Woodrow Wilson's policy of segregating black federal employees. In 1915 the NAACP protested the showing of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" at local movie theatres. In 1921 the Seattle NAACP lobbied against an anti-intermarriage (miscegenation) bill that was being proposed in the state legislature, successfully defeating the issue.

In the early 1920s, the emergence of a new civil rights organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), drew many blacks away from the NAACP, leaving it dormant. In 1928, after UNIA's controversial president, Marcus Garvey, was deported, the NAACP became reactivated in Seattle by new Chapter president Lodie M. Biggs. During the years of the Great Depression, the Chapter successfully blocked anti-intermarriage bills in the state legislature, began a campaign against police brutality, leading to the conviction of three Seattle police officers, and advocated for fair employment practices.

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