The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909 and is America’s oldest, largest most pre-eminent civil rights organization in the nation. It was formed in New York City by White and Black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against African Americans around the country. In the NAACP’s early decades, its anti-lynching campaign was central to its agenda. During the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s, the group won major legal victories, and today the NAACP has more than 2,200 branches and some half a million members worldwide.

Since its inception, the NAACP has worked to achieve its goals through the judicial system, lobbying and peaceful protests.

The NAACP played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. One of the organization’s key victories was the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools.

The NAACP also successfully lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, barring racial discrimination in voting.

Today we are focused on such issues as inequality in jobs, education, health care and the criminal justice system, as well as protecting voting rights. We have over 2,200 units and branches across the nation, along with well over 2 million activists.

Our mission is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.

The vision of the NAACP is to ensure a society in which ALL individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.

Together, we will remain vigilant in our mission until the promise of America is made real for all.
“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.