National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

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)