History of Civil Rights Movement: The NAACP

Graduation Project

Mentor: Asst. Prof. Doc. Shener Bilalli

Student: Adelina Isufi, 1112.E.02

International Balkan University

Faculty of Languages,

English Language and American Studies

Skopje, Macedonia

January, 2017
 Abstract

The struggle for liberties and rights for African Americans was a long journey. From
American History, we are aware of the position of African American as slaves in the colonial
times up to the end of the Civil War in which they were deprived the basic right as human
beings. However, after the Civil War the slavery was abolished and with the 13th ,14th and 15th
amendment ratification in the US constitution all people were given the rights they corresponded.
Those rights were written only in paper. the racial discrimination still excited and Plessy v.
Fergusson heated the situation. Therefore, many black people created many organizations that
helped advance the black rights and fight the so known Jim Crow Laws. The first organization
was named The Niagara Movement with the leader W.E.B Du Bois. Lynching and protest were
present during that time and that stimulated the creation of another powerful organization in
1909 named National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The founders were
Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, Henry Moskowitz,
W.E.B Du Bois, Ida B. Wells- Barnet and Mary Church Terrell. The goal of this organization
was to ensure political, educational, social and economic equality to African American. They
fought racial inequalities, desegregation, and fair voter registration by publicity, lobbying,
education and legal challenges through protest and courts. They even challenged the Congress
and contributed in the in the civil right movement by helping through courts which led to the
Civil Right Act of 1957, 1960, 1964 and the Voting Right of 1965.

Keywords: African American, Slavery, Niagara Movement, W.E.B Du Bois, Civil Rights, The
NAACP, Civil Rights Act.

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1. Introduction

The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was one of
the oldest and most influential organization in the US whose missions are to ensure political,
educational, social and economic equality to African American. The NAACP was born from the
Niagara Movement, founded by W.E.B Du Bois, and in response to the horrific practice of
lynching and the 1908 race riots in Springfield, Illinois. ("NAACP | Oldest and Boldest", 2016).
It was founded in 1909 by a group of white and black intellectuals such as Mary White
Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, Henry Moskowitz, W.E.B Du
Bois, Ida B. Wells- Barnet and Mary Church Terrell. W.E.B Du Bois was one of the prominent
leaders of NAACP and an important figure in American civil rights movement. He made a lot of
accomplishments in his life starting with the Niagara Movement as one of the founders, later as a
co-founder of NAACP, editor over thirty year of the journal, The Crises and a highly prolific
writer.

The NAACP did not prompted violence, instead they fought racial inequalities,
desegregation, and fair voter registration by publicity, lobbying, education and legal challenges
through protest and courts. NAACP organized peaceful protest, the biggest one being in New
York City, where their main headquarter was established in 1909. The importance of these
protest was highlight the importance to bringing an end to the lynching, Jim Crows laws and
racial discrimination to African American (Lewis, 2016).

The timeline of NAACP major events will help identify the continuous fight against
white supremacy and the fight to win the same rights as every American citizen living in US.
Those events may include the several legal cases won by NAACP lawyers such as Thurgood
Marshal, Charles Hamilton Houston, Moorfield Storey and many more.
Some of these cases include Guinn v. United States (1915) Buchanan v. Warley, Moore
v. Dempsey (1923), Sweatt v. Painter 1950, Brown V Board of Education (1954) a turning point
in American history, and so on. Political actions took place such as creating passage for 1964
Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. Through cases fought and won in the U.S.
Supreme Court as well as grassroots initiatives such as the Freedom Summer, the NAACP
consistently appealed to various levels of government to change American society.

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2. Origins of NAACP

2.1 Early history

African American struggle for equal right and liberties has started even before the Civil
Rights Act had been established. Slavery in US was common in the colonial up until the end of
the Civil War. The slavery was abolished and the Constitution was changed adding the 13 th
Amendment (1865) which abolished slavery, the 14 th Amendment (1868) which addresses
citizenship right and equal protection of the laws and the 15 th Amendment which prohibits the
federal government and state prohibiting the citizen the right to vote based on race, color and
previous condition of servitude. Even though the Constitution had been changed and slavery
abolished, the African American still lacked the rights and liberties promised by the state (Kass,
Kass, & Schaub, 2011). The white supremacy in the South wanted black people oppressed as in
the time of slavery, so despite the 1875 Civil Right Act, which stated that all races had equal
right for public transportation, the Supreme Court in 1883 explained that that Act did not apply
to private persons and corporations. The confusion was clarified by Homer Plessy.

A man named Homer Plessy, a plaintiff, challenged the legality of segregation. On June
7, 1892, he boarded a train in New Orleans and took a seat in a coach which was reserved only
for white people. Since he was one-eight black, and by Louisiana law he was classified as a
black person, he was ordered to leave the seat. But she refused to leave the seat in order to
challenge the Court and bring the case for the legality of segregation. The trial lasted for 6 years,
but at the end the Supreme Court decided that the law for “separate, but equal” was
constitutional. The case is the well-known Plessy v. Ferguson case. Following the decisions of
Plessy v Ferguson case, more laws were passed on the segregation of black people, known as Jim
Crow laws. These states denied African American people the voting rights, the right to
participate in public schools and deprived them from getting a proper education, these laws
prohibited employment opportunities, segregation happened in transport facilities, restaurant,
theaters, hotels and even public bathrooms. Jim Crow laws were considered a way of life in
America, especially the Southern states. Here are some examples of the Jim Crow Laws in some
states as compiled by the Martin Luther King Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive:

Barbers. No colored barber should serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia) ("Jim
Crow Museum: Origins of Jim Crow", 2016)

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“Burial. The officer in charge shall not bur, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon
gorund set apart or used for burial of white persons (Georgia)”.

“Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of
colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of the reading book or periodicals
(North Carolina)”.

“Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled
to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where
white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall
be under the command of white officers (North Carolina)”.

“Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or
rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which Negro men are placed (Alabama)”. ("Jim
Crow Museum: Origins of Jim Crow", 2016).

Above described are several on many other examples of segregation, which made African
American life so difficult and so rigorous. It continued with race riots and lynching and African
American decide to fight back. So, in the beginning of the 20 th century many African American
leaders started a different way to fight back the Jim Crow Laws.

Booker T. Washington was the well know activist, educator, thinker and a great leader of
the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was known for his theory on “racial uplift, or in
other word racial accommodation known as the Atlanta Compromise with southern white people.
He believed that black people should accept disenfranchisement and social segregation and try to
elevate themselves through hard work and prosper in education, in agriculture and economics so
that later African American could be a self-made people, independent, and stable. Booker T.
Washington said “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social
equality is the extremist folly". He believed that only in this way white people would end
segregation and accept African American as citizens of US. ("Booker T & W.e.b | The Two
Nations Of Black America | FRONTLINE | PBS", 2016).

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 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, (1868- 1963) is a 20 th Century African- American
remarkable scholar, intellectual, activist in politics and journalism. In his collection of essays
The Soul of Black Folks (1903), Du Bois “rejected [Booker T.] Washington’s advocacy of
vocational education, social compromise, and political accommodation (Samuels, 2007, p. 150).”
In response to Booker T. Washington’s ideology Du Bois called for a meeting of other 28
intellectual black leaders who opposed the ideology of racial disenfranchisement. Thus, 1905 a
Movement was founded which they named The Niagara Movement, named after the place where
the meeting was held. The purpose of Niagara Movement was to fight for the rights of African
American in a different way of that of Washington’s. This movement wanted for African
American people to fully exercise the civil rights. The goals of Niagara movement were made
clear by the drafted speech by Du Bois and Totter. The passage of the speech follows:

“We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political,
civil and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the
ears of America! In detail, our demands are clear and unequivocal. First, we would vote;
with the right to vote goes everything: freedom, manhood, the honor of your wives, the
chastity of your daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen
to those who deny this. We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth
and forever! Second. We want discrimination in public accommodation to cease.
Separation in railway and street cars, based simply on race and color, is un-American,
undemocratic, and silly. Third. We claim the right of freemen to walk, talk, and be with
them that wish to be with us. No man has a right to choose another man's friends, and to
attempt to do so is an impudent interference with the most fundamental human privilege.
Fourth. We want the laws enforced against rich as well as poor; against capitalist as well
as laborer; against white as well as black. We are not more lawless than the white race:
We are more often arrested, convicted and mobbed. We want Congress to take charge of
Congressional elections. We want the Fourteenth Amendment carried out to the letter and
every state disfranchised in Congress which attempts to disfranchise its rightful voters.
We want the Fifteenth Amendment enforced and no state allowed to base its franchise
simply on color.The failure of the Republican Party in Congress at the session just closed
to redeem its pledge...to suffrage conditions in the South seems a plain, deliberate, and

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 premeditated breach of promise, and stamps that Party as guilty of obtaining votes under
false pretense. Fifth. We want our children educated. The school system in the country
districts of the South is a disgrace, and in few towns and cities are the Negro schools
what they ought to be. We want the national government to step in and wipe out illiteracy
in the South. Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy
the United States. And when we call for education we mean real education. We believe in
work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the
development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human
beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black
boys and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people.
They have a right to know, to think, to aspire. These are some of the chief things which
we want. How shall we get them? By voting where we may vote, by persistent, unceasing
agitation, by hammering at the truth, by sacrifice and work.”

The Niagara Movement in spite of its rhetoric and its eloquence did not succeed since their
funding was very poor and very unorganized and it was ineffective as a national civil right
organization at its brief history. The existence of Niagara Movement was short and uncertain
because of the internal controversy and of Washington’s extensive and effective network in the
Black community. After its termination, many members of the movement joined NAACP, the
new movement with the most influence in the lives of African American in the US.

3. Founding of NAACP and Its Early Days as a New Movement

What stimulated the founding of the NAACP were the riots and lynching during that
period. More specifically the violent race riot in 1908 in Springfield, Illinois. In response to those
riots a group of white people, Jews, gentiles and black people gathered in New York City to
discuss the status of black people. ("Founding and Early Years - NAACP: A Century in the Fight
for Freedom | Exhibitions - Library of Congress", 2016). William English Walling, a social
reformer and a labor activist, decide to participate at the riot happening in Chicago where the
white mobs attacked African Americans. He wrote an article in The Independent in which he
investigated the riot and described the violence. In it he talked about the race hatred by the white
people and he called for help and assistance of the blacks from the citizens. ("The Walter White
Project: William English Walling and the formation of the NAACP", 2016) This article spread

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all over the country and also was read by a journalist and a social worker from an abolitionist
family. Her name was Mary White Ovington. She worked in an African American family and
she was doing a research revolutionary sociological work Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in
New York (1911). She was interested to join William English Waling’s plea to assist black
people. She also invited Dr. Henry Moskowitz, another social worker and a labor reformer, to
join the plea and see what they could do to help the black situation in North. These were the very
first founders of NAACP. Joined were two other social reformers Charles Edward Russell, an
abolitionist editor in a small newspaper in Iowa, and Oswald Garrison Villard, a publisher of the
liberal New York Evening Post and The Nation. To the meeting Ovington also invited two black
New York clergymen, Alexander Walters, Church and the Rev. William Henry Brooks, minister
of St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church of New York. (du Bois, 1999). On February 12, 1909,
the group that was expanding step by step agreed to issue a call for a conference in New York.
The call had the plan to ensure African American protection of their civil and political rights,
same as Niagara Movement did. This call reflected their platform. The call was signed by 60
people who seven were black. In the call were joined professor William L. Bulkley, Du Bois, a
school principal, the Rev. Francis J Grimke, Mary Church Terrell, Dr. J. Milton Waldron, Bishop
Walters and Ida Wells-Barnett.

The main goal of the founder was to ensure equality to all citizens as is written in the
Constitution as well as cease the segregation. Legal battles and campaigning were their first
focus instead of mass actions in their fight against discrimination of African American. Later on,
the movement’s organizers formed an institutional structure ruled by an executive committee. In
this group were included many black including Du Bois but women were excluded from the
committee. Many other people contributed in the movement but the core ideas and principal
organizations were those of Villars and Ovington’s. The NAACP was taking its lead establishing
their first national office in New York in 1910. Now that the organization was in their early years
they were trying to expand it and provide equality for African Americans. Their programs
included job opportunities for blacks and creating more possibilities in protecting them
especially in the South by crusading against lynching.

In that very first year the NAACP made a great advancement including the most
important act by hiring DU BOIS as director of publication and research. As mentioned before

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W.E.B Du Bois was an activist who fought for the rights of black people. He was a scholar, a
writer and sociologist. He was one of the first African American people to get a history degree in
Harvard university. His most significant work was The Souls of Black Folk (1903) where he
defended blacks and where he opposed Booker T. Washington’s policy of political conservatism
and racial accommodation. In response to this policy du Bois created the Niagara movement
which served as the underpinning of the new organization that emerged based on the same aims
of those of Niagara’s movement. That movement would be National Association for the
Advancement of Black People. Du Bois was the co-founder of the organization. ("DuBois,
W.E.B. (1868-1963) - Social Welfare History Project", 2016). Du Bois was the editor and the
founder of the first official NAACP magazine, The Crises.

3.1 The Crises

Du Bois, the founder of the magazine, has envisioned this to be the journal that will
inform people of the social and race injustice of African Americans in the United States. The
magazine was written particularly about literate African Americans. In November, 1910 was the
first publication of the crises where it reached 1,000 copies. In one year of publication it reached
16,000 copies monthly. In eight years, the magazine reached 100,000 readers. ("Modernist
Journals Project", 2016). The Crises aim was to inform the audience of the issues happening
during that time and trying to include important topics such as women suffrage, education, labor,
vacations home and the war (Du Bois, 1910/11). Du Bois made it clear in his first editorial for
the magazine “The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and arguments which show
the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people. It takes its
name from the fact that the editors believe that this is a critical time in the history of the
advancement of men. …Finally, its editorial page will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of
color or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and
persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals." The Crises issues that were
published every month would include articles on the current issues at the time, editorial
commentary, shorts stories, poems essays on history and culture, reviews, art work and reports
on the black people achievements. Du Bois as the editor of The Crises published many works of
the young talents of Harlem renaissance. The period where these events were happening was
known as the “New Negro Era”. More about this in the following paragraphs

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 The organization was starting to expand all over US. They started to open organizational
offices. The main office was set in New York City in 1910, a year later branches were created in
many state’s cities starting from Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louise, and Quincy
Illinois. In Chicago, Kansas City, Tacoma, Washington, and Washington D.C the offices were
opened in 1913. National NAACP was mainly white people at the beginning, while with the
opening of the local branches more black people were hired in the organization. All of these
people dedicated their lives to make this organization work. Villard is an example of a dedicated
and a contributor of his time, effort and also his personal fund in order to protect the organization
from a failure. Others too contributed by giving personal funds and implementing ideas. But
black people were not comfortable of whites taking the control of the NAACP. Ida B. Wells-
Barnett openly confessed in the founding conference how she felt about whites taking control
over the organization. That’s why she kept herself away from getting involved in the
organization. Villard and Du Bois as well had many disputes over white control of the
organization. What Du Bois disliked the most was the interfering of the whites in magazine The
Crises who he believed that this editorial was independent and self-supporting. But many whites
as well thought of Du Bois as a provocative always criticizing them and also, they accused him
of not covering all the events happening at that time, including black crime.

Disputes between Du Bois and Villard led to resignation of Villard as the head of the
organization. The new chairman that was assigned was Joel Spingarn. Even though the new
chairman was named, the clashes continued. That was because Du Bois and the others didn’t
agree with white control over the organization. Du Bois and other wouldn’t agree on submission
and the inferiority of whites anymore. But after many conflicts in the organization, Spingarn and
Ovington supported him in many of his board matters. In 1919 Ovington became the chairman of
NAACP, and she started to criticize Du Bois of him not accepting and not following the board
policies. All these issues made the whites reflect that maybe they shouldn’t be the head of an
organization that deals with black issues. But even though Du Bois feared of submission to the
whites, he feared mre of them leaving the organization and of the organizations collapse. And so,
the issues of black people being hired in the higher positions in the organization continued.

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4. NAACP’s Social Activism

NAACP in its early years tried to unite and define the sprawling organization through
social activism like protest, demonstration and boycotts. The first protest that NAACP organized
was against D.W Griffith movie The Birth of a Nation. This movie depicts the south after the
Civil War by valorizing the KKK and displaying the blacks in the most racist way. NAACP
wanted the movie banned or censored and they stated it was “historically inaccurate and, with
subtle genius, designed to palliate and excuse the lynching and other deeds of violence
committed against the Negro.” (Linskey, 2015). The NAACP protested for many years to ban
this movie and after a series protest they succeed to ban it in some states with the help of
lobbying and campaigning. But that wasn’t very successful attempt to stop this movie from
displaying it in the American theater. But even though they couldn’t do that at least they could
gain more membership in the NAACP and thus expanding it and make it more powerful.

NAACP during 1915 had another landmark. In November 14, Booker T. Washington
passed away. He was another black leader who wanted the right of blacks with a different
platform of that of Du Bois. Washington tried to implemented the idea of accommodation with
the Jim Crow laws policies, whereas Du Bois had a different view for the African American
future. Now that Washington had passed away the main black organization would be the
NAACP. That is why Du Bois in 1916 called a conference with the accommodationist, that is
Washington’s men. The conference was called Amenia conference. The people participating in
the conference accepted to be part of the NAACP and seceded from Washington’s group. In
other words, these conference participants accepted the NAACP platform for full racial equality,
civil rights and political power.

NAACP’s primary mission, fight against racial violence, was vastly influenced by World
War I and similar events that followed. Du Bois established a controversial policy during the war
which advocated black support for American military, having in mind the great impact the policy
will have for civil rights later. However, the post-war results led to racial tension between the
whites who lived in the northern urban areas and the southern blacks who migrated there. Whites
failed to accept the change in the racial status quo, showing their discomfort through violent
riots, most notably during the post-war Red Summer of 1919. Black people had a safety
problems, people suffering from physical violation, lynching and assassination of black people

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by mob action violated the constitutional right. The organization had to make sure that the lives
of black people were not in danger after the NAACP initiatives and actions. The NAACP was
always into stopping the lynching in the US, that is why at the beginning they used publicity
campaigns assisted by pamphlets, detailed studies and many other educational activities to make
people aware, gain their support and to help the ending of the rigorous crimes. In 1911 the
organization had a protest campaign against lynching in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and it was and
extensive publicity. In 1917 another silent protest parade occurred, there have been 15,000
protesters in Harlem against the violence east of St. Louis, Illinois and racial discrimination in
general.

The NAACP planned to spread their branches in the South to help the suppressed blacks
over there. It was a dangerous step to take but by the 1919 had 31 branches in the South while in
the whole country it had 310. With this initiative of The NAACP the membership increased as
well. By the 1919 it had 91,203 members. Another concern of the NAACP black members was
to establish a black line for higher position in the organization. The NAACP administrative lines
slowly but steadily would have a lot of African America staff who were giving their best to gain
their rights they deserved.

5. The NAACP Legal Struggle in Courts

The NAACP besides social activism they were trying to get their right by through courts.
These battles were significant for the civil rights of African American since they have changed
their lives in a better way. The movement lacked black lawyers at the beginning that’s why many
white people engaged to these legal works and made many cases won by them. The lack of
funding the legal programs, Arthur Spingarn and his law partner Charles. H. Studin together with
Moorfield Storey volunteered for these legal services. (needs paraphrasing) There are many
significant court battles that are worth mentioning. Later Charles Hamilton Houston and
Thurgood Marshall would take action in many cases and they were the leaders of these court
battles.

5.1 First Legal Battles of NAACP

Guinn v. United State (1915): The first case won by NAACP was Guinn v. United States
States (1915). “The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Guinn v. United States that Oklahoma's

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"grandfather clause," which is used to disfranchise black men, is unconstitutional. Oklahoma's
"grandfather clause," designed to disfranchise people of color and enforce segregation, is found
unconstitutional in Guinn v. United States. The clause allows illiterate men to vote if they can
prove that their grandfathers could vote. Because the grandfathers of most African American
men in 1915 had been slaves, they did not have the right to vote. Consequently, the clause
enabled illiterate white men to vote but not illiterate African Americans.” (The Voting Rights
Timeline,2005).

Buchanan v. Warley (1917): Another important case was Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
where NAACP won which resulted in weaking the residential segregation. The Supreme Court
banned public regulations on residential segregating and ruled in Buchanan V. Warley that the
Louisville, Kentucky, residential segregation ordinance was unconstitutional. After this case has
been declared unconstitutional the mandatory housing segregation was annulled in some cities,
including Norfolk, Baltimore, St. Louis etc.

Moore v. Dempsey (1923): in this case, won by NAACP In 1923, twelve black farmers
were accused for killing whites during a riot and thus sentenced to death. The white mobs were
celebrating about this alleged victory. But Walter white believed in them and therefore he
travelled to Arkansas pretending to be a reporter. The first who was interviewed was the
governor and he continued his travel in Philips county, the scene of the massacre. NAACP with
the help of Walter Whites finding hired the lawyers to defend the twelve farmers. When the court
received the case it ruled in their favor stating that it was the trial was dominated by white people
excluding blacks. The twelve farmers were free at last. (Maxwell, Pollard, Wormser, & Jersey,
2004)

The Ossian Sweet Trial (1925): The NAACP made it possible for Dr. Ossian Sweet a
legal representation in court. Dr. Sweet had moved to a middle-class neighborhood where he
faced the white mob. The house was being attacked by the whites and in self-defense Dr. Sweet
shot a white man in the crowd. The case was handled by attorney Clarence Darrow who was
appointed by the NAACP. After several trials, Dr. Ossian Sweet was set free.

Except the anti-lynching struggle, the NAACP fought against racial segregation in the courts at
the same time winning most of those cases. Handling the injustice through court was a lesson for

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public education, white and black, teaching them that injustice is being fought and accept even
bigger challenges in different issue

6. The White Primary Legal Campaign

The NAACP showed a great interest on the “White Primary”. Even with the 15th
Amendment ratified in the Constitution given the right of voting to every American, after the
Reconstruction era the Southern states tried to deprive the blacks from voting or disfranchise. To
do that many strategies were used starting from poll taxes, literacy test, physical violence etc.
White primary was another strategic way to disfranchise the blacks from voting. This strategy
was created by the Southern whites. In this way, they would prevent the African Americans from
the primary elections. The South was under control of Democratic Party, and they declared that
this party is a private organization, which automatically excluded blacks. The NAACP accused
the whites of violation the 14th and 15th Amendment and, thus conducted many legal campaigns
against the white primary from 1920 till 1950. In Nixon v. Herndon (1927) case the Supreme
Court decided Unanimously that Texas state primary law was unconstitutional. However, even
with this decision, the Texas legislature was replaced by the law of 1923 where the party could
decide who can vote and who cannot in the primary. The NAACP member Lawrence A. Nixon
sued again, and in1932 the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. Condon. However, in 1935 the
Supreme Court ruled in Grovey v. Townshend despite the NAACP efforts, and claimed that after
all the party is a private organization therefore they could exclude blacks from the primary. The
annulment of the white primary was in 1944 in Smith v. Alwright case. (Greenberg, 2010)

7. NAACP Assault on Segregation

The NAACP main goal was to ensure economic, social, political, and educational
equality for African American. The NAACP in the 1930s started a new legal journey in courts
with a new legal strategy against segregated education. In early cases that took place in the US
courts NAACP was dependent on volunteer lawyers, to end that the NAACP created its own
legal department. What made this the NAACP take this step was the lawyer Nathan Ross
Margolds’s legal program or Margold’s Report. This legal program was funded b Garland Fund.
What MArgold suggested was to "strike directly at the most prolific sources of discrimination"
by challenging "the constitutional validity of segregation if and when accompanied irremediably

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by discrimination." Moreover, he suggested that the NAACP pays attention on the obvious
inequalities between white and black schools.

The NAACP in 1933 hired Charles Hamilton Houston as its chief attorney. Charles H.
Houston was known as “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow” because he planned on how to attack
the “separate, but equal doctrine” in a brilliant way. He graduated from Amherst College in
Massachusetts in 1915. He was enlisted in the U.S Army after two years of teaching in Harvard
University. He also graduated from Harvard University in the Law Department, and during his
studies he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. After doing some law works
with his father he became the vice- dean of the Howard Law School where he served from 1925
until 1935. In this school was his student Thurgood Marshall, another NAACP important
attorney. Graduate and professional schools were his plan of attack. Murray v. Maryland (1935),
where a student named Donald Murray was denied the admission in the Maryland University of
Law, was the first case that Houston applied his strategy that later would lead to the Brown v.
Board of Education. The case was led by Thurgood Marshall and he argued in some different
ways. There were no black schools in Maryland, there was only one law school but the
admission of black people was impossible and he thought that a black student should be able to
study there. the Supreme received the case and black people could enroll in the University of
Maryland form that time onwards. NAACP coordinated many other cases that led to the
landmark to the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

7.1 Brown v. Board of Education

The NAACP in the 1950s started its legal campaign against “separate, but equal” first
established with the case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. The NAACP started a series of cases on
segregation before the case of Brown v. Board of Education was sent to courts. One of the cases
of legal attack on higher education was Sweatt v. Painter. In this case the court had ruled in favor
of Herman Sweatt, an African American who enrolled in the University of Texas School of
Law but he was denied admission in the school because of his skin color. Therefore, the Supreme
court decided that the law was unconstitutional and violated the equal protection clause of
Fourteenth Amendment. Another important case that paved the way of Brown v. Board of
Education was the McLaurin v. Oklahoma case. George McLaurin was an African American
retired professor. Except his master degree McLaurin wanted to register for a doctorate on

15
education. He applied in University of Oklahoma where he was accepted but with some
conditions. He had to sit in a separate room, he had to study in a separate area in the library, and
he had to eat in e different time of those of white schedule of meal. The case was filed in the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court studied the case and decided that the Oklahoma University
has not the right to segregate McLaurin and that he should have the same rights and treatment as
the white of the school have. Thus, the Supreme Court ruled in in favor of McLaurin. (Brown,
2004) with the Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma decision, that is victories, the
NAACP presented a very well-designed legal strategy called “Equality Under Law” to abolish
segregation in elementary and secondary schools completely. Also, these two cases encouraged
Thurgood Marshall to address the Supreme Court to undo Plessy v. Ferguson even though he
faced a lot of opposition from people who were committed to abolishment of segregation. But
Thurgood Marshal was determined to succeed.

The case known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas actually included
appeals from decisions in four separate states: Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, and Virginia.
The four cases were consolidated in one case. In these particular cases children of African
American community request to be accepted in public schools in their communities on a non-
segregated basis. The children were denied admission under the law that allowed the “separate,
but equal” doctrine. That is why they parents filed their issue in the Court and they hired
representatives to protect their rights. The legal representatives were member of the NAACP.
The plaintiffs, in this way, were denied from Equal Protection of laws under the 14 th
Amendment. The three cases were denied from the federal district Court except that of Delaware.
The Supreme Court OF Delaware decided in favor of African American student because it was
obvious the inferiority of black school and deficit of elementary needs. That’s white they should
be admitted to white school were the facilities are higher in quality.

Brown v Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas- one of group cases of Brown v Board of
Education was filed against the Topeka, Kansas school by the plaintiff Oliver Brown. He was the
father of one of the students who was denied admission to this white school in Topeka, Kansas.
Her name was Linda Brown and she was denied from admission to a school five blocks far from
her home because of her skin color. Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment was the
central question asked in the Court. The question goes as follows “Does segregation of children

16
in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other
'tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children…of equal educational opportunities?” In
other words, the Court was asked to clarify if the segregated school are constitutional. The chief
of the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall. He argued that the segregated schools were harmful for
children of African American people. Thurgood Marshal provided for the Court a wide ranged
testimony about the debate of segregation in public school and that resulted in low self-esteem
among minority student and basic unequal education.

7.2 The Decision

The Chief Justice of the Brown v. Board of Education was Earl Warren who wrote the
decision himself. In unanimous decision, the Court decided that segregation in public school
violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Judge Warren wrote
“Segregation in public education is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. To separate some
children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a
feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in
a way unlikely ever to be undone”. At the end, he Warren wrote “We conclude that in the field of
public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities
are inherently unequal…. segregation in public education is a denial of the equal protection of
the laws.” The decision ultimately undo Plessy’s doctrine of “separate, but equal”. This case is
seen as the landmark in the American society changing the segregationist era in US. It opened
the way for the civil right movement and open the way of African-Americans to obtain more
rights.

8. The Aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education

Many events occurred outside the court after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of
Education that happened outside the court. Those events include many of boycotts and protests.
The very well-known Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Little Rock Nine, Sit in Movement and so
on. These events changed a lot the US society and the lives of African American in the 20th
century. The NAACP was a witness and a contributor to these events.

8.1 Rosa Parks of NAACP

17
 On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was driving home from a
taxing day of work at the Montgomery Fair retail chain by bus. Black occupants of Montgomery
regularly stayed away from city transports if conceivable in light of the fact that they found the
Negroes-in-back arrangement so belittling. In any case, 70 percent or more riders on a regular
day were black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them (Kreitner, 2015 :43).
Segregation was built into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was saved for white residents, and
the seats behind them for black citizens. In any case, it was just by custom that bus drivers had
the power to request that a dark individual surrender a seat for a white rider. There were
opposing Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be constrained, yet another,
to a great extent disregarded, said no individual (white or black) could be requested to give up a
seat regardless of the fact that there was no other seat on the bus. However, at one point on the
highway, a white man had no seat since all the seats in the assigned "white" area were taken. So,
the driver told the riders in the four seats of the main line of the "colored" part to stand, as a
result adding another column to the "white" segment (Brinkley, 2000 :4).
However, Rosa Parks is not an innovator in the conventional sense, nor would she have
viewed herself as to be one. However, her straightforward, unconstrained act includes the
thought of social change—that another thought or method for doing things can have such great
effect that it renders old ways obsolete and fundamentally adjusts how individuals consider
themselves, their social collaborations, and their place in the bigger world.

8.2 The Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans rejected to ride city
transports in Montgomery, Alabama, to challenge segregated seating, occurred from December
5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is considered as the first large-scale demonstration against
segregation in the United States. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott started,
Rosa Parks, an African-American lady, rejected to give up her seat to a white man on a
Montgomery bus. She was captured and punished. The boycott of public buses by blacks in
Montgomery started upon the arrival of Parks' court hearing and prolonged 381 days. The U.S.
Supreme Court eventually requested Montgomery to coordinate its transport framework, and one
of the pioneers of the boycott, a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), rose as
a noticeable national pioneer of the American civil rights movement in the wake of the activity.

18
 8.3 Montgomery Bus Boycott: African – Americans Mobilize
As news of the boycott were omnipresent, African-American leaders through
Montgomery, Alabama's capital city, started loaning their support. Black priests reported the
boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the Montgomery Advertiser, a general-interest
daily paper, printed a front-page article on the arranged activity. Roughly 40,000 African-
American bus riders the larger part of the city's black bus riders boycotted the framework the
following day. On the evening of December 5, black leaders met to configured the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA). The array chose Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), the 26-
year-old-minister of Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its leader, and chose to
proceed with the boycott until the city took care of its requests. (Larson and Payne, 1998:13). At
the beginning, the requirement excluded changing the segregation laws; rather, the array
requested politeness, the enrollment of black drivers, and a first-seated approach, with whites
entering and filling seats from the front and African Americans from the rearmost.
Eventually, in any case, a group of five Montgomery ladies, introduced by lawyer Fred
D. Dim (1932-) and the NAACP, sued the city in U.S. District Court, looking to have the busing
segregation laws nullified. Though African Americans represented no less than 75 percent of
Montgomery's bus ridership, the city opposed agreeing to the MIA's requests. To confirm the
boycott could be maintained, black leaders convened carpools, and the city's African-American
cab drivers charged just 10 cents–the same cost as bus fare–for African-American riders.
Numerous black inhabitants selected basically to stroll to work and distinct destinations. Black
leaders composed consistent mass gatherings to keep African-American occupants prepared
around the boycott. This legal victory had the potential to challenge all cases of segregation in
the U.S. However, the Boycott and its effects had convinced the organizers that legal action
alone would not advance civil rights. During and after the Boycott, its leaders tried to change
behaviour and attitudes: this challenge continued throughout the 1960s as the Civil Rights
movement gathered pace.

8.4 Montgomery Bus Boycott: Integration at Last

On June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court decided that any law requiring racially
segregated seating on buses abused the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That
alteration was acquainted in 1868 after the American Civil War (1861-65), ensures all residents,
regardless of race, equal rights and equal protection under state and government laws. The city
19
spoke to the U.S. Supreme Court, which maintained the lower court's choice on December 20,
1956. Montgomery's buses were incorporated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott finished. It
had persisted 381 days. (Paterson, 2006, http://www.gilderlehrman.org ).
Integration met with significant resistance and even violence. While the buses themselves
were integrated, Montgomery maintained segregated bus stops. Snipers began firing into buses,
and one shattered both legs of a pregnant African-American passenger. In January 1957, four
black churches and the homes of prominent black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King’s house
was defused. On January 30, 1957, the Montgomery police arrested seven bombers; all were
members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group. The arrests largely brought an end to
the busing-related violence.

9. Little Rock Crisis

The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national
attention on September 3, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National
Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school.
After several failed attempts to negotiate with Faubus, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took
action against the defiant governor by simultaneously federalizing the Arkansas National Guard,
removing the Guard from Faubus' control, and ordering one thousand troops from the United
States Army 101st Airborne Division in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky to oversee the integration. On
September 25, 1957, the students, now known as the Little Rock Nine, entered Central High
School, an academically renowned school with an enrollment of approximately two thousand
white students. Despite suffering constant torment and discrimination from their classmates,
eight of the nine students completed the school year at Central High School (Friedman, 2008:
52). For the Little Rock Nine, the battle was only the beginning. Throughout the school year,
they faced physical and verbal assaults from white students, as well as death threats against
themselves and even against their families and other members of the black community groups.

Although the horrific treatment of the students marked how sick and twisted racist minds worked
during the 1950s, the moment helped to motivate those within the Civil Rights Movement to
fight even harder to combat similar injustices across the country. To make their struggle even
more noteworthy, each of the “Nine” graduated from Little Rock Central and all went on to have
amazing careers spanning the fields of journalism, accounting, social work and psychology.
20
 The crisis in Little Rock had a profound impact on America and the rest of the world. It
provided indelible proof of the lengths to which some Southerners would go to prevent
integration. It also showed African Americans that they could attain the rights guaranteed to
them by the Constitution if they made themselves heard, on the street and in the courtroom. Such
events in history occur when the time has ripened for them, but they need a spark. Little Rock
was that spark at that stage of the struggle of the blacks for justice.
Notably, the courageous actions of the Little Rock Nine helped open the gate for education for
African – Americans all across the nations (Anderson, 2013: 7).

10. The Civil Right Era

The NAACP during this time secured many important cases starting from Brown vs.
Board of Education of Topeka (1954). Later the lobbyist Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. assisted the
cause of civil right movement by advancing the Civil Right Act of 1960, Civil Right Act of 1964
Civil Right Act of 1968, and the Voting Right Act of 1965. The NAACP provided legal
representation in court and helped other member of other groups with the same cause.

10.1 Enacting Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Right Act of 1965 (Congress Act)

The NAACP had two major achievements through enactment of laws passed by
Congress. These laws were passed to give the adequate rights to African American and other
minorities, even though these rights were guaranteed by the 15th Amendment in the Constitution
in 1870. The NAACP’s first civil right law was in 1960, that its 1960 Civil Right Act. This in
fact was not a very strong voting right. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights
Act of 1960. This was the primary civil rights bill to be accepted by Congress since
Reconstruction. Despite the fact that Eisenhower is not routinely connected to the civil rights
subject, his commitment, including the 1957 Act, was essential as it pushed the entire civil rights
case into the White House. At the time, government officials from the South were furious over
what they saw as federal intrusion in state operations. This bill turned into an act where as both
parties were battling for the "Black Vote."
The 1960 Civil Rights Act presented that punishments to be charged against anyone who
deterred somebody's endeavor to enroll to vote or somebody's endeavor to really vote. A Civil
Rights Commission was established. However, the act scarcely touched on anything new and

21
Eisenhower, toward the end of his administration, was blamed for passing the irritable issue of
voter’s constitutional rights over to his successor. Despite the fact that the act did little to inspire
civil rights pioneers, they were prepared to recognize that it was again central government
acknowledgment that a constitutional issue existed.

10.2 the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the major victories of NAACP. After this the
NAACP started working on protection on laws and the rights to vote. The NAACP political
lobbying led to the Civil Right Act of 1964.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is consider to be legislative landmark of the civil right
movement. This act abolished segregation in public places and employment discrimination based
on race, national origin religion, sex etc. at the start this act was proposed by John F. Kennedy,
but at the start was rejected by the Southerners and their representatives in the Congress. After
the death of president John Kennedy, who passed the bill in 1963, president Lyndon Johnson was
his success and made his top priority Kennedy’s civil right bill. This changed the political
dynamics of the impending civil rights legislation. Johnson had more influence, power and
experience to push the civil right through Congress. Johnson words in his first State of the Union
were as follows “Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for Civil
rights than the last hundred years’ session combined.” (Civil Right Act,
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act) Johnson also took advantage of the
public and sympathy through mourning over through Kennedy’s assassination. His strategy
helped him gain support of the people. He also used religious leaders to pursue this ideology to
influence people to fight for the rights. Johnson had many strategies. First of all, he understood
Congress perfectly. Since he has worked in the Senate for many years he developed his influence
and his outlook with other representatives and colleagues. He earned the confidence of leader of
other parties. Second of all, his personality was very rich. He was charming, flattering and he had
a lot of personal knowledge. That opened the doors of winning the civil right act. Johnson fought
for this to happen, and after a huge struggle and persistence he succeeded to pass the Civil Right
Act of 1964. (The Civil Right Act Of 1964, http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/the-
civil-rights-act-of-1964 ).
22
10. 3 The Voting Right Act of 1965

Another legal victory of NAACP was the Voting Right Act of 1965. Another NAACP
political lobbying helped African American to get their rights. The then president of US, Lynden
Johnson, had focused in voting rights after the victory of 1964 elections.

The voting rights were enacted ninety-five years ago, with the ratification of 15th
Amendment. As mentioned earlier, African Americans had a lot of obstacles in the voting
process including poll taxes, literacy tests, another administrative limitation form voting.
Johnson in his speech on March 15, 1965 addressed the nation the problems and possible
solution to issues. He supported the Voting Right Act. With a strong supporter like the president
of the US African American reacted in several ways, staring with protest and boycotts. Other
than that, the murder of a voting right activist in Mississippi and other types of violence gained
national attention. However, the most important of all this was the attack in Selma to
Montgomery March. The March was organized by Southern Christian Leadership Conference
with the leader Martin Luther King Jr. and its aim was to march silently for the voting rights
which deprived blacks but it met violent resistance by State and Local Authorities. This attack
was all over news programs and that rouse national awareness, and thus people started to support
the voting rights legislation. This incident in Selma, Alabama, people protesting against Southern
laws on voting rights and presidents Johnson strategy and influence in Congress made the act
being signed on August 5, 1965. The Voting Right Act of 1965 had drastic results. This act was
one of the most important change in US history and among federal and state governments. The
literacy test and pol tax was removed and in Southern areas the African American voting
increased. ( citation needed).

After this the focus of the NAAC changed. The organization tried t put all its efforts in
the enforcement of public school desegregation, employment, as well as winning the passage of
strengthen provisions. The NAACP had an important influence and it contributed in the
legislation which ended segregation. The NAACP continued its struggle through the 1970s and
onwards. Even today the NAACP is trying to fulfil the goals of achieving equality in poitic,
society, and economy for African American.

Conclusion

23
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This huge sprawling movement can be divided into three strategic areas. One is social
activism—the protests, demonstrations, and boycotts. Another is the legal struggle that
took place in courts. The third occurred in the legislative arena, getting Congress and the
president to enact civil rights laws and enforce them.

28
29