February 12 - Tucson News Now

February 12, 1909

NAACP is Established in New York City

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, some 60 black and white activists and intellectuals assembled in New York City and created the organization that became known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples.

Its initial focus was a campaign against lynching, but it soon expanded its focus to many issues of social injustice, including segregated schools. An NAACP legal team gained the organization's most remembered victory in 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court outlawed "separate-but-equal" segregated schools in the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. (The NAACP initially was named the National Negro Committee.)