The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909.^[3] Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination".^[4] Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people.

The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving African Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.^[5]

Organization[link]

The NAACP's headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional regional offices in California, New York, Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Texas and Maryland.^[6] Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in the states included in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.

The NAACP is run nationally by a 64-member board led by a chair. The board elects one person as the President and one as chief executive officer for the organization; Benjamin Jealous is its most recent (and youngest) President, selected to replace Bruce S. Gordon, who resigned in March 2007. Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia State Senator Julian Bond was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by health-care administrator Roslyn M. Brock.^[7]

Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the Branch and Field Services department and the Youth and College department. The Legal Department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C., bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education.

As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members.^[8]

Pre-History: The Niagara Movement[link]

In 1905, a group of 32 prominent, outspoken African Americans met to discuss the challenges facing "people of color" (a term used to describe people who were not white) and possible strategies and solutions. Among the issues they were concerned about was the disfranchisement of blacks in the South starting in 1890 to 1908, when Southern legislatures ratified new constitutions creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. Voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in the South as a result. Men who had been voting for 30 years were told they did not "qualify" to register.

Because hotels in the U.S. were segregated, the men convened under the leadership of Harvard scholar W. E. B. Du Bois at a hotel (Fort Erie Hotel) on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in Fort Erie, Ontario. As a result, the group came to be known as the Niagara Movement. A year later, three whites joined the group: journalist William E. Walling, social worker Mary White Ovington, and social worker Henry Moskowitz, then Associate Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

The fledgling group struggled for a time with limited resources and internal conflict and disbanded in 1910.^[9] Many members of the Niagara Movement then went on to join the NAACP. Although both organizations shared membership and overlapped in their existence, the Niagara Movement was a separate organization and is historically thought of as having a more radical platform than the NAACP. The Niagara Movement was formed exclusively by African Americans, while the meeting which birthed the idea of the NAACP was with three white people.

History[link]

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The Birth of the NAACP[link]

The Race Riot of 1908 in Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois had highlighted the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in the U.S. This event is often cited as the catalyst for the formation of the NAACP. Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling and Henry Moskowitz met in New York City in January 1909 and the NAACP was born.^[10] Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the meeting did not take place until three months later, this date is often cited as the founding date of the organization.

The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 by a diverse group composed of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimké, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling (the last son of a former slave-holding family),^[10][11] Florence Kelley, a social reformer and friend of Du Bois,^[12] and Charles Edward Russell, a renowned muckraker and close friend of Walling who helped plan the NAACP and served as acting chairman of the National Negro Committee (1909), a forerunner to the NAACP.^[13]

On May 30, 1909, the Niagara Movement conference took place at New York City's Henry Street Settlement House, from which an organization of more than 40 individuals emerged, calling itself the National Negro Committee. Du Bois played a key role in organizing the event and presided over the proceedings. Also in attendance was African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett. At its second conference on May 30, 1910, members chose as the organization's name the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and elected its first officers, who were:^[14]

• National President, Moorfield Storey, Boston
• Chairman of the Executive Committee, William English Walling
• Treasurer, John E. Milholland (a Lincoln Republican and Presbyterian from New York City and Lewis, NY)
• Disbursing Treasurer, Oswald Garrison Villard
• Executive Secretary, Frances Blascoer
• Director of Publicity and Research, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois.

The NAACP was incorporated a year later in 1911. The association's charter delineated its mission:

To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for the children, employment according to their ability and complete equality before law.

The conference resulted in a more influential and diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white and heavily Jewish American. In fact, at its founding, the NAACP had only one African American on its executive board, Du Bois himself. It did not elect a black president until 1975, although executive directors had been African American. The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar writes in his book A History of Jews in America of how, "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise."^[15] Early Jewish-American co-founders included Julius Rosenwald, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch and Wise.

According to Pbs.org "Over the years Jews have also expressed empathy (capability to share and understand another's emotion and feelings) with the plight of Blacks. In the early 20th century, Jewish newspapers drew parallels between the Black movement out of the South and the Jews' escape from Egypt, pointing out that both Blacks and Jews lived in ghettos, and calling anti-Black riots in the South "pogroms". Stressing the similarities rather than the differences between the Jewish and Black experience in America, Jewish leaders emphasized the idea that both groups would benefit the more America moved toward a society of merit, free of religious, ethnic and racial restrictions."^[16] Pbs.org further states, "The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League were central to the campaign against racial prejudice. Jews made substantial financial contributions to many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. About 50 percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960s were Jews, as were over 50 percent of the Whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge Jim Crow Laws."^[16]

As a member of the Princeton chapter of the NAACP, Albert Einstein corresponded with Du Bois, and in 1946 Einstein called racism "America's worst disease".^[17][18] Du Bois continued to play a pivotal role in the organization and served as editor of the association's magazine, The Crisis, which had a circulation of over 30,000.

Moorfield Storey, who was white, was the president of the NAACP from its founding to 1915. Storey was a long-time classical liberal and Grover Cleveland Democrat who advocated laissez-faire free markets, the gold standard, and anti-imperialism. Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights, not only for blacks but also for Native Americans and immigrants (he opposed immigration restrictions).

Fighting Jim Crow and disfranchisement[link]

In its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation. In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy, offices, and hiring.

By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches. It was influential in winning the right of African Americans to serve as officers in World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 men registered for the draft. The following year, the NAACP organized a nationwide protest, with marches in numerous cities, against D.W. Griffith's silent movie Birth of a Nation, a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, several cities refused to allow the film to open.

The NAACP began to lead lawsuits targeting disfranchisement and racial segregation early in its history. It played a significant part in the challenge of Guinn v. United States (1915) to Oklahoma's discriminatory grandfather clause that disfranchised most black citizens while exempting many whites from certain voter registration requirements. It persuaded the Supreme Court of the United States to rule in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 that state and local governments cannot officially segregate African Americans into separate residential districts. The Court's opinion reflected the jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract as embodied in the earlier precedent it established in Lochner v. New York.

In 1916, when the NAACP was just seven years old, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing the NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years, the NAACP escalated its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the "American Negro".

The NAACP devoted much of its energy during the interwar years to fighting the lynching of blacks throughout the United States by working for legislation, lobbying and educating the public. The organization sent its field secretary Walter F. White to Phillips County, Arkansas, in October 1919, to investigate the Elaine Race Riot. More than 200 black tenant farmers were killed by roving white vigilantes and federal troops after a deputy sheriff's attack on a union meeting of sharecroppers left one white man dead. White published his report on the riot in the Chicago Daily News.^[19] The NAACP organized the appeals for twelve black men sentenced to death a month later based on the fact that testimony used in their convictions was obtained by beatings and electric shocks. It gained a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Dempsey 261 U.S. 86 (1923) that significantly expanded the Federal courts' oversight of the states' criminal justice systems in the years to come. White investigated eight race riots and 41 lynchings for the NAACP and directed its study Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States.^[20]

The NAACP also spent more than a decade seeking federal legislation against lynching, but Southern white Democrats voted as a block against it or used the filibuster in the Senate to block passage. Because of disfranchisement, there were no black representatives from the South in Congress. The NAACP regularly displayed a black flag stating "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" from the window of its offices in New York to mark each lynching.

In alliance with the American Federation of Labor, the NAACP led the successful fight to prevent the nomination of John Johnston Parker to the Supreme Court, based on his support for denying the vote to blacks and his anti-labor rulings. It organized support for the Scottsboro Boys. The NAACP lost most of the internecine battles with the Communist Party and International Labor Defense over the control of those cases and the strategy to be pursued in that case.

The organization also brought litigation to challenge the "white primary" system in the South. Southern states had created white-only primaries as another way of barring blacks from the political process. Since southern states were dominated by the Democrats, the primaries were the only competitive contests. In 1944 in Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court ruled against the white primary. Although states had to retract legislation related to the white primaries, the legislatures soon came up with new methods to limit the franchise for blacks.

Legal Defense Fund[link]

The board of directors of the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in 1939 specifically for tax purposes. It functioned as the NAACP legal department. Intimidated by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc., became a separate legal entity in 1957, although it was clear that it was to operate in accordance with NAACP policy. After 1961 serious disputes emerged between the two organizations, creating considerable confusion in the eyes and minds of the public.^[21]

Desegregation[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Locals viewing the bomb-damaged home of Arthur Shores, NAACP attorney, Birmingham, Alabama, on September 5, 1963. The bomb exploded on September 4th, the previous day, injuring Shores' wife.

With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil rights litigation. The NAACP's Legal department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign spanning several decades to bring about the reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine announced by the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

The NAACP's Baltimore chapter, under president Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson, challenged segregation in Maryland state professional schools by supporting the 1935 Murray v. Pearson case argued by Marshall. Houston's victory in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) led to the formation of the NAACP Legal Defense fund in 1940.

The campaign for desegregation culminated in a unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that held state-sponsored segregation of elementary schools was unconstitutional. Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including E.D. Nixon, its local president, and Rosa Parks, who had served as the chapter's Secretary, helped organize a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. This was designed to protest segregation on the city's buses, two-thirds of whose riders were black. The boycott lasted 381 days.

The State of Alabama responded by effectively barring the NAACP from operating within its borders because of its refusal to divulge a list of its members. The NAACP feared members could be fired or face violent retaliation for their activities. Although the Supreme Court eventually overturned the state's action in NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), the NAACP lost its leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement while it was barred from Alabama.

New organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rose up with different approaches to activism. These newer groups relied on direct action and mass mobilization to advance the rights of African Americans, rather than litigation and legislation. Roy Wilkins, NAACP's executive director, clashed repeatedly with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders over questions of strategy and leadership within the movement.

The NAACP continued to use the Supreme Court's decision in Brown to press for desegregation of schools and public facilities throughout the country. Daisy Bates, president of its Arkansas state chapter, spearheaded the campaign by the Little Rock Nine to integrate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.

By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its preeminence in the Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. That fall President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress before he was assassinated.

President Lyndon B. Johnson worked hard to persuade Congress to pass a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations, and succeeded in gaining passage in July 1964. He followed that with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for protection of the franchise, with a role for federal oversight and administrators in places where voter turnout was historically low.

After Kivie Kaplan died in 1975, scientist W. Montague Cobb became President of the NAACP and served until 1982. Benjamin Hooks, a lawyer and clergyman, was elected as the NAACP's executive director in 1977, after the retirement of Roy Wilkins.

The NAACP in the 1990s[link]

In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt. The dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis.

In 1993 the NAACP's Board of Directors narrowly selected Reverend Benjamin Chavis over Reverend Jesse Jackson to fill the position of Executive Director. A controversial figure, Chavis was ousted eighteen months later by the same board that had hired him. They accused him of using NAACP funds for an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit.^[22] Following the dismissal of Chavis, Myrlie Evers-Williams narrowly defeated NAACP chairperson William Gibson for president in 1995, after Gibson was accused of overspending and mismanagement of the organization's funds.

In 1996 Congressman Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic Congressman from Maryland and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, was named the organization's president. Three years later strained finances forced the organization to drastically cut its staff, from 250 in 1992 to just fifty.

In the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch a major get-out-the-vote offensive in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections. 10.5 million African Americans cast their ballots in the election. This was one million more than four years before,^[22] and the NAACP's effort was credited by observers as playing a significant role in Democrat Al Gore's winning several states where the election was close, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan.^[22]

Lee Alcorn controversy[link]

During the 2000 Presidential election, Lee Alcorn, president of the Dallas NAACP branch, criticized Al Gore's selection of Senator Joe Lieberman for his Vice-Presidential candidate because Lieberman was Jewish. On a gospel talk radio show on station KHVN, Alcorn stated, "If we get a Jew person, then what I'm wondering is, I mean, what is this movement for, you know? Does it have anything to do with the failed peace talks?" ... "So I think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between the Jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with money and these kind of things."^[23]

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume immediately suspended Alcorn and condemned his remarks. Mfume stated, "I strongly condemn those remarks. I find them to be repulsive, anti-Semitic, anti-NAACP and anti-American. Mr. Alcorn does not speak for the NAACP, its board, its staff or its membership. We are proud of our long-standing relationship with the Jewish community and I personally will not tolerate statements that run counter to the history and beliefs of the NAACP in that regard."^[23]

Alcorn, who had been suspended three times in the previous five years for misconduct, subsequently resigned from the NAACP and started his own organization called the Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights. Alcorn criticized the NAACP, saying, "I can't support the leadership of the NAACP. Large amounts of money are being given to them by large corporations that I have a problem with."^[23] Alcorn also said, "I cannot be bought. For this reason I gladly offer my resignation and my membership to the NAACP because I cannot work under these constraints."^[24]

Alcorn's remarks were also condemned by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Jewish groups and George W. Bush's rival Republican presidential campaign. Jackson said he strongly supported Lieberman's addition to the Democratic ticket, saying, "When we live our faith, we live under the law. He [Lieberman] is a firewall of exemplary behavior."^[23] Al Sharpton, another prominent African-American leader, said, "The appointment of Mr. Lieberman was to be welcomed as a positive step."^[25] The leaders of the American Jewish Congress praised the NAACP for its quick response, stating that: "It will take more than one bigot like Alcorn to shake the sense of fellowship of American Jews with the NAACP and black America... Our common concerns are too urgent, our history too long, our connection too sturdy, to let anything like this disturb our relationship."^[26]

NAACP and George W. Bush[link]

In 2004, President George W. Bush (president from 2001–2009) declined an invitation to speak to its national convention.^[27] The White House originally said the president had a schedule conflict with the NAACP convention,^[28] slated for July 10–15, 2004. On July 10, 2004, however, Bush's spokesperson said that Bush had declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP because of harsh statements about him by its leaders.^[28] In an interview, Bush said, "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent. You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me."^[28] Bush also mentioned his admiration for some members of the NAACP and said he would seek to work with them "in other ways."^[28]

On July 20, 2006, Bush addressed the NAACP national convention. He made a bid for increasing support by African Americans for Republicans, in the midst of a midterm election.^[29][30]

NAACP and tax exempt status[link]

The Internal Revenue Service informed the NAACP in October 2004 that it was investigating its tax-exempt status based on Julian Bond's speech at its 2004 Convention in which he criticized President George W. Bush as well as other political figures.^[31][32] In general, the US Internal Revenue Code prohibits organizations granted tax-exempt status from "directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."^[33] The NAACP denounced the investigation as retaliation for its success in increasing the number of African Americans who vote.^[31][34] In August 2006, the IRS investigation concluded with the agency's finding "that the remarks did not violate the group's tax-exempt status."^[35]

NAACP and LGBT rights[link]

As the American LGBT rights movement gained steam after the Stonewall riots of 1969, the NAACP became increasingly affected by the movement to suppress or deny rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Bond, while chairman of the NAACP, became an outspoken supporter of the rights of gays and lesbians, publicly stating his support for same-sex marriage. Most notably he boycotted the 2004 funeral services for Coretta Scott King on the grounds that the King children had chosen an anti-gay megachurch. This was in contradiction to their mother's longstanding support for the rights of gay and lesbian people.^[36] In a 2005 speech in Richmond, VA, Bond stated:

African Americans ... were the only Americans who were enslaved for two centuries, but we were far from the only Americans suffering discrimination then and now. ... Sexual disposition parallels race. I was born this way. I have no choice. I wouldn’t change it if I could. Sexuality is unchangeable.^[37]

In a 2007 speech on the Martin Luther King Day Celebration at Clayton State University in Morrow, GA, Bond said, "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married." His positions have pitted elements of the NAACP against religious groups in the Black Civil Rights movement who oppose gay marriage mostly within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) who was blamed partly for the success of the recent gay marriage ban amendment in California.^{[citation needed]} The NAACP became increasingly vocal in opposition against state-level constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage and other rights, with state NAACP leaders such as William J. Barber, II of North Carolina participating actively against (the ultimately-successful) North Carolina Amendment 1 in 2012.

On May 19, 2012, the NAACP's board of directors formally endorsed same-sex marriage as a civil right, voting 62-2 for the policy in a Miami, Florida quarterly meeting^[38][39]. Benjamin Jealous, the organization's president, said of the decision, "Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law...The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people." Possibly significant in the NAACP's vote was its concern with the HIV/AIDS crisis in the black community; while AIDS support organizations recommend that people live a monogamous lifestyle, the government did not recognize same-sex relationships.^[40]

Current activities[link]

NAACP and youth[link]

This aspect of the NAACP came into existence in 1936 and now is made of over 600 groups and totaling over 30,000 individuals. The NAACP Youth & College Division is a branch of the NAACP in which youth are actively involved. The Youth Council is composed of hundreds of state, county, high school and college operations where youth (and college students) volunteer to share their voices or opinions with their peers and address issues that are local and national. Sometimes volunteer work expands to a more international scale. Committing to the Youth Council may reward young people with travel opportunities or scholarships.

In 2003, NAACP President and CEO, Kweisi Mfume, appointed Brandon Neal, the National Youth and College Division Director.^[41] Currently, Stefanie L. Brown serves as the NAACP's National Youth & College Division Director. A graduate and former Student Government President at Howard University, Stefanie previously served as the National Youth Council Coordinator of the NAACP.

Mission of the Youth & College Division[link]

"The mission of the NAACP Youth & College Division shall be to inform youth of the problems affecting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities; to advance the economic, education, social and political status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities and their harmonious cooperation with other peoples; to stimulate an appreciation of the African Diaspora and other people of color’s contribution to civilization; and to develop an intelligent, militant effective youth leadership."

ACT-SO program[link]

Since 1978 the NAACP has sponsored the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) program for high school youth around the United States. The program is designed to recognize and award African American youth who demonstrate accomplishment in academics, technology, and the arts. Local chapters sponsor competitions in various categories of achievement for young people in grades 9–12. Winners of the local competitions are eligible to proceed to the national event at a convention held each summer at locations around the United States. Winners at the national competition receive national recognition along with cash awards and various prizes.^[42]

See also[link]

African American portal

• Association for the Study of African American Life and History
• Black Rock Coalition
• NAACP Image Awards
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• NAACP Theatre Awards
• Niagara Movement
• Racial integration
• Resignation of Shirley Sherrod
• Spingarn Medal

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Richard Dalfiume, "The Forgotten Years of the Negro Revolution," Journal of American History 55 (June 1969): 99-100. fulltext in JSTOR
• Fleming, Cynthia Griggs. In the Shadow of Selma: The Continuing Struggle for Civil Rights in the Rural South Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. 349 pp.
• Goings, Kenneth W. The NAACP Comes of Age: The Defeat of Judge John J. Parker (1990). late 1920s
• Hughes, Langston. Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP (1962)
• Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP. New Press, 2003.
• Jonas, Gilbert S. Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle against Racism in America, 1909-1969. (Routledge, 2005). 240 pp.
• Lewis, David Levering. W.E.B. DuBois (2 vol, 1994, 2001); Pulitzer Prize
• Mosnier, L. Joseph. Crafting Law in the Second Reconstruction: Julius Chambers, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Title VII. University of North Carolina, 2005. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is an entirely separate organization despite its similar name
• Ross, Barbara Joyce. J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 1911-1939 (1972)
• St. James, Warren D. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: A Case Study in Pressure Groups (1958)
• Schneider, Mark Robert. We Return Fighting: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age (2001)
• Topping, Simon; "'Supporting Our Friends and Defeating Our Enemies': Militancy and Nonpartisanship in the NAACP, 1936-1948," Journal of African American History, Vol. 89, 2004 in JSTOR
• Verney, Kevern and Lee Sartain, eds. Long Is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the NAACP (2009), 16 new essays by scholars
• Zangrando, Robert. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950 (1980)
• Events on the NAACP timeline (1939 - Present), naacp.org

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: NAACP

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Barack Obama's Remarks at NAACP centennial

• Official website
• Civil Rights Greensboro: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans, crmvet.org
• Youth College Mission, naacp.org
• Article and Video, The NAACP 100 Years On, governingdynamo.com
• Annual ACT-SO Contest, naacp-Los Angeles.org
• Official site of the Brooklyn, New York Branch, brooklynnaacp.org
• NAACP in Georgia, georgiaencyclopedia.org
• The Wichita NAACP Blog, wichitanaacpblog.com
• George W. Bush addresses NAACP national convention for the first time July 20, 2006 (Video)
• President Obama NAACP Speech: "Your Destiny Is In Your Hands ... No Excuses" - video by The Huffington Post
• NAACP Turns 100: The History and Future of the Nation’s Oldest and Largest Civil Rights Organization, democracywow.org video
• Niagara Movement Du Bois Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Umass Amherst
• FBI file on the NAACP

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Mitt Romney
70th Governor of Massachusetts
In office January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007
Lieutenant	Kerry Healey
Preceded by	Jane Swift (Acting)
Succeeded by	Deval Patrick
Personal details
Born	Willard Mitt Romney (1947-03-12) March 12, 1947 (age 65) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Ann Romney (m. 1969) «start: (1969)»"Marriage: Ann Romney to Mitt Romney" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Mitt_Romney)
Children	Taggart (b. 1970) Matthew (b. 1971) Joshua (b. 1975) Benjamin (b. 1978) Craig (b. 1981)
Residence	Belmont, Massachusetts Wolfeboro, New Hampshire San Diego, California
Alma mater	Brigham Young University (BA) Harvard University (MBA, JD)
Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Positions	Co-founder, Bain Capital (1984–1999) CEO, Bain & Company (1991–1992) CEO, 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee (1999–2002)
Signature
Website	MittRomney.com

	This article is part of a series about Mitt Romney	Mitt Romney
2012 Presidential campaign 2008 Presidential campaign Governor of Massachusetts, 2003–2007 1994 U.S. Senate election Political positions · Electoral history Public image

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).

The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1966, after one year at Stanford University, he left the United States to spend thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He entered the management consulting industry, which in 1977, led to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as Chief Executive Officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Ward Bishop and later Stake President in his area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and he helped turn the fiscally troubled games into a success.

He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. During his term he presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $1.5 billion deficit. He also signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via state-level subsidies and individual mandates.

Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, winning several primaries and caucuses but losing the nomination to John McCain. In the following years, he gave speeches and raised campaign funds on behalf of his fellow Republicans. In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; as of May 2012, he has won enough caucuses and primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee.

Early life and education[link]

Heritage and youth[link]

Willard Mitt Romney^[1] was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan,^[2] the youngest child of George W. Romney, a self-made man who by 1948 had become an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), an aspiring actress turned homemaker.^[3][4][5] His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents.^[6][7] He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry.^[8][9][10] He is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).^[11][12] A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was an early leader in the church during the same time.^[13]

He was preceded in birth by three siblings: Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott. Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years. He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears.^{[14][nb 1]} In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills.^[16] In 1954, his father became the chairmen and CEO of American Motors, a company he helped avoid bankruptcy, and return to profitability.^[16] By the time Mitt was twelve, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television,^[17] and Mitt idolized him.^[18]

Mitt Romney began attending Cranbrook School in the seventh grade.

He attended public elementary schools^[15] until the seventh grade, when he began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a traditional private boys' preparatory school where he was one of only a few Mormons and where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than he.^[19][20] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically.^[18] During his sophomore year he participated in the 1962 campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.^{[nb 2]} When his parents moved to the state capitol as part of George Romney taking office, Mitt took up residence at Cranbrook's Stevens Hall.^[19] George Romney was re-elected twice; Mitt worked for him as an intern in the governor's office, and was present at the 1964 Republican National Convention when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism.^[18][22] During these years, Romney had a steady set of chores and summer jobs, including working as a security guard at a Chrysler plant.^[23]

At Cranbrook he was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad,^[19] and during his final year joined the cross country running team.^[15] He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club boosters group.^[19] During his final year at Cranbook, Romney improved academically, but was still not a star pupil.^[18][20] He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels".^[20] Romney was involved in many pranks.^{[nb 3]}

In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies, two years his younger, whom he had first met in elementary school; she attended the private Kingswood School, the sister school to Cranbrook.^[27][20] The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation.^[18]

University, France mission, marriage and children: 1965–1975[link]

Romney attended Stanford University for a year,^{[18][nb 4]} where he worked as a night security guard in order to pay for trips home to see Ann.^[28] Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-Big Game actions designed to protect the Stanford Axe.^[18] In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in in the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.^[18][29]

In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary,^[18][31] a traditional rite of passage that his father and many other relatives had volunteered for.^{[nb 5]} He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters.^[33][13] Rules against drinking, smoking, and dating were strictly enforced.^[13] Most individual Mormon missionaries do not gain many converts,^[35] and Romney was no exception:^[33] he later estimated ten to twenty for his entire mission.^[36] The nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people were especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol.^[18][13][30] He became demoralized, and later recalled it as the only time when "most of what I was trying to do was rejected."^[33] In Nantes, he suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players.^[13] He continued to work hard; having grown up in Michigan rather than the more insular Utah world, Romney was better able to interact with the French than other missionaries.^[37][13] He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary.^[33][13][38] In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed palace-like accommodations.^[38] Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return.^[13][33] He witnessed the May 1968 general strike and student uprisings and was upset by the breakdown in social order.^[39]

In June 1968, an automobile he was driving in southern France was hit by another vehicle, seriously injuring him and killing one of his passengers, the wife of the mission president.^{[nb 6]} Romney, who was not at fault in the accident,^{[nb 6]} became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident.^[37] He rallied and motivated the others and they met an ambitious goal of 200 baptisms for the year, the most for the mission in a decade.^[37] By the end of his stint in December 1968, he was overseeing the work of 175 fellow members.^[33][40] Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French.^[42] The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose.^[18][37][13] It also represented a crucible, after having been an indifferent Mormon growing up: "On a mission, your faith in Jesus Christ either evaporates or it becomes much deeper ... For me it became much deeper."^[33]

While he was away, Ann Davies had converted to the Mormon faith, guided by George Romney, and had begun attending Brigham Young University (BYU).^[18] Mitt was nervous that she had been wooed by others while he was away, and she had indeed started dating popular campus figure Kim S. Cameron and had sent Romney in France a "Dear John letter", greatly upsetting him; he wrote to her to in an attempt to win her back.^[43][15] At their first meeting following Romney's return they reconnected, and decided to get married immediately but agreed to wait three months to appease their parents.^[44] At Ann's request, Romney began attending Brigham Young too, in February 1969.^{[43][nb 4]} The couple were married on March 21, 1969, in a civil ceremony at Ann's family's home in Bloomfield Hills that was presided over by a church elder.^[46][47][48] The following day, the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple.^[46][47]

While Mitt attended Harvard, his father George W. Romney (pictured here with Richard M. Nixon) served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away, and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign.^[33] Regarding the military draft, Romney had initially received a student deferment, then, like most Mormon missionaries, a ministerial deferment while in France, and then a student deferment.^[33][49] When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured he would not be selected.^[33][49][50]

At culturally conservative BYU, he remained isolated from much of the upheaval of the era, and did not join in protests against the war, or the LDS Church's policy at the time of denying full membership to blacks.^[24][33][43] He became president of, and an innovative fundraiser for, the all-male Cougar Club booster organization and showed a new-found discipline in his studies.^[33][43] In his senior year, he took leave to work as driver and advance man for his mother Lenore Romney's eventually unsuccessful 1970 campaign for U.S. Senator from Michigan.^[24][46] He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971,^[43] and gave commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU.^{[nb 7]}

The Romneys' first son, Taggart, was born in 1970^[46] while they were undergraduates at Brigham Young^[52] and living in a basement apartment.^[33][43] Ann subsequently gave birth to Matt (1971), Josh (1975), Ben (1978), and Craig (1981).^[46] Her work as a homemaker would enable her husband to pursue his career.^[53]

Romney still wanted to pursue a business path, but his father, by now serving in President Richard Nixon's cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, advised him that a law degree would be valuable to his career.^[54][55] Thus he became one of only fifteen students to enroll at the recently created joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration four-year program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.^[56] Fellow students considered him guilelessly optimistic, noting his solid work ethic and buttoned-down demeanor and appearance.^[56][57] He readily adapted to the business school's pragmatic, data-driven case study method of teaching, participated in class well, and led a study group whom he pushed to get all A's.^[55] He had a different social experience from most of his classmates, since he lived in a Belmont, Massachusetts, house with Ann and two children.^[46][55] He was non-ideological and did not involve himself in the political or social issues of the day.^[46][55] He graduated in 1975 cum laude from the law school, in the top third of that class, and was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top five percent of his business school class.^[51][56]

Business career[link]

Management consulting[link]

Romney was recruited by several firms and chose to remain in Massachusetts to work for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), reasoning that working as a management consultant to a variety of companies would better prepare him for a future position as a chief executive.^{[54][58][nb 8]} He was part of a 1970s wave of top graduates who chose to go into consulting rather than join a major company directly.^[60] His legal and business education proved useful in his job^[54] while he applied BCG principles such as the growth-share matrix.^[61] He was viewed as having a bright future there.^[54][62]

In 1977, he was hired away by Bain & Company, a management consulting firm in Boston that had been formed a few years earlier by Bill Bain and other former BCG employees.^[61][54][63] Bain would later say of the thirty-year-old Romney, "He had the appearance of confidence of a guy who was maybe ten years older."^[64] With Bain & Company, Romney learned what writers and business analysts have dubbed the "Bain way",^[54][63][65] which consisted of immersing the firm in each client's business,^[54][64] and not just issuing recommendations but staying with the company until changes were put into place.^[61][63][66] Romney became a vice president of the firm in 1978,^[15] and worked with clients such as the Monsanto Company, Outboard Marine Corporation, Burlington Industries, and Corning Incorporated.^[58] Within a few years, he was one of Bain & Company's best consultants and was sought after by clients over more senior partners.^[54][67]

Private equity[link]

Romney was restless for a company of his own to run, and in 1983, Bill Bain offered him the chance to head a new venture that would buy into companies, have them benefit from Bain techniques, and then reap higher rewards than consulting fees.^[54][61] He initially refrained from accepting the offer, and Bain re-arranged the terms in a complicated partnership structure so that there was no financial or professional risk to Romney.^[54][64][68] Thus, in 1984, Romney left Bain & Company to co-found the spin-off private equity investment firm, Bain Capital.^[66] In the face of skepticism from potential investors, Bain and Romney spent a year raising the $37 million in funds needed to start the new operation, which had fewer than ten employees.^[58][64][69] As general partner of the new firm, Romney spent little money on costs such as office appearance, and saw weak spots in so many potential deals that by 1986, few had been done.^[54] At first, Bain Capital focused on venture capital opportunities.^[54] Their first big success was a 1986 investment to help start Staples Inc., after founder Thomas G. Stemberg convinced Romney of the market size for office supplies and Romney convinced others; Bain Capital eventually reaped a nearly sevenfold return on its investment, and Romney sat on the Staples board of directors for over a decade.^[54][69][70]

Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing firms with money mostly borrowed against their assets, partnering with existing management to apply the "Bain way" to their operations (rather than the hostile takeovers practiced in other leverage buyout scenarios), and selling them off in a few years.^[54][64] Existing CEOs were offered large equity stakes in the process, owing to Bain Capital's belief in the emerging agency theory that CEOs should be bound to maximizing shareholder value rather than other goals.^[70] Bain Capital lost most of its money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but then started finding deals that made large returns.^[54] The firm invested in or acquired Accuride, Brookstone, Domino's Pizza, Sealy Corporation, Sports Authority, and Artisan Entertainment, as well as lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors.^[54][64][71] He ran Bain Capital for fourteen years, during which time the firm's average annual internal rate of return on realized investments was 113 percent.^[58] Much of this profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals; Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even.^{[nb 9]}