| The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) was formed on February 12, 1909. This group
was created with powerful guidance from W.E.B. Du Bois and other
African Americans. The date was a symbolic one, for one hundred
years earlier, Abraham Lincoln (sixteenth President of the United
States), had been born. During the 1860's, Lincoln had worked as a
great emancipator to end slavery in the U.S. The group was a
powerful voice during the Civil Rights Movement; it fought and won
the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in
1954.
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), who was also a historian, received a
Ph.D. at Harvard University. He promoted higher education for
African Americans. The date of his death (August 27, 1963) was
notable because it fell on the day before the march on Washington,
D.C. took place.
Another notable African American during this time period was
Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915), who had been born to a
white man and slave woman. Washington is known for founding
Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881. He was an
advocate of providing vocational education to African Americans,
but he received much opposition from African Americans for not
emphasizing the importance of equal rights and professional
training.
Today, the NAACP is still a powerful voice for the rights of
minorities (especially African Americans). The organization's web
site can be viewed at [ http://www.naacp.org ].
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