The NAACP also worked with politicians to draft anti-lynching laws and fair housing laws to protect African-Americans from being threatened or chased out of towns. The NAACP, formed in 1909, fought segregation using awareness campaigns and peaceful public demonstrations, as well as court actions. NAACP Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (118.00.00) Courtesy of the NAACP Harry Truman. For his pivotal role in the bill’s passage, Clarence Mitchell received the Spingarn Medal. It is believed that her grandfather purchased his wife out of slavery. [Digital ID # cph.3c26948], Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-civil-rights-era.html#obj5. Medgar W. Evers (1925–1963), the son of a farmer, was born in Decatur, Mississippi. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the “separate but equal” principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Chairman Roy Wilkins to United States Senators concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1968, January 15, 1968. Seven years later, the power of collective … NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (122.00.00) He also led voter registration drives and mass protests, organized boycotts, fought segregation, and helped James Meredith enter the University of Mississippi. He then worked as an organizer for the United Steelworkers before joining the NAACP staff in 1948. After days of violence and rioting by whites, Meredith, escorted by federal marshals, enrolled on October 1, 1962. He left the NAACP in 1977 to accept a joint professorship in Afro-American studies and industrial relations at the University of Wisconsin, from which he retired in 1997. In 1909, the country was still stunned from a race riot the year before in Springfield, Illinois, the city in which Lincoln had once lived. theMichelleNajarro. Program. How did the NAACP fight segregation? Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens; to achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizen of the United States," (naacp… . Typescript. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (110.00.00) Courtesy of the NAACP Gelatin silver print. The project focused national attention on the plight of Mississippi’s blacks and led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. During the 1950s Belafonte worked as women’s editor of the New York Amsterdam News, an educational director in early childhood training, and a radio commentator. With NAACP support, he filed a pay equalization lawsuit in 1937. The civil rights struggle served as a blueprint and inspiration for many other groups seeking equality and access. Typed letter. Page 2. All were members of NAACP youth councils. The organization who helped start the bus boycott and helped fight against segregation in schools. The NAACP will resist efforts in areas outside the compulsory segre­ gation belt to institute or continue a variety of forms of segregation, using the Court opinion and decrees as added weapons. Photograph of Walter Francis White, between 1920 and 1940. ar history 15-17. This sample voter registration application, featuring a literacy test, was used by W.C. Patton, head of the NAACP voter registration program, to educate black voters in Alabama. The NAACP held the 60th annual convention in Jackson, Mississippi, a first for Mississippi—a battleground of the civil rights movement. Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, April 5, 1963. Did Turkey fight on the side of Germany in World War II? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) celebrated its 100 anniversary Feb. 12, 2009. [Digital ID # na0104], Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-civil-rights-era.html#obj32. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (107.01.00) Courtesy of the NAACP Photograph. President Nixon promptly nominated another anti-black, anti-labor judge to the Supreme Court, G. Harrold Carswell of Florida. Other relatives of founders were presented to the audience of more than 500 by Robert C. Weaver, Vice Chairman of the Board. Typescript. Here they were ultimately successful when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in schools in a ruling in 1954. Yanker Poster Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (116.00.00) Courtesy of the NAACP [Digital ID # cph.3b24324], Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-civil-rights-era.html#obj22. In 1951 Hurley was sent to Birmingham, Alabama, to coordinate membership drives in the Deep South. In the former, the arrest of Rosa Parker for refusing to move to the back of a bus launched a year-long community-wide bus boycott that succeeded in ending racial segregation on public transport in the Deep South city of Montgomery, Alabama.