NAACP

N A A C P - History & Mission

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

From the ballot box to the classroom, the dedicated workers, organizers, and leaders who forged this great organization and maintain its status as a champion of social justice, fought long and hard to ensure that the voices of African Americans would be heard. For nearly one hundred years, it has been the talent and tenacity of NAACP members that has saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society.

Our Mission

The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.

Vision Statement

The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights and there is no racial hatred or racial discrimination.

Objectives

The following statement of objectives is found on the first page of the NAACP Constitution — the principal objectives of the Association shall be:

• To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens
• To achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States
• To remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes
• To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights
• To inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its elimination
• To educate persons as to their constitutional rights and to take all lawful action to secure the exercise thereof, and to take any other lawful action in furtherance of these objectives, consistent with the NAACP's Articles of Incorporation and this Constitution.

For more than ninety nine years, the NAACP built and grew on the collective courage of thousands of people. People of all races, nationalities and faiths united on one premise—that all men and women are created equal.

The nation's oldest civil rights organization has changed America's history. Despite violence, intimidation and hostile government policies, the NAACP and its grass-roots membership persevered.

Here are just a few of the NAACP's courageous moments. They have involved everyone from school children to laborers to professionals to presidents to just ordinary men and women, those who decided to champion what's right and just...

• Rosa Parks
• The Voting Rights Act
• Representative John Conyers
• Carter G. Woodson
• W.E.B. DuBois
• The Legacy of Harry T. and Harriette Moore
• Anti-Lynching Bill
• Costigan-Wagner Bill
• Anti-Lynching Bill Background
• History of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing
• James Weldon Johnson
• Roy Wilkins
• Charles Hamilton Houston
• Medgar Evers
• Oscar Micheaux
• Mary White Ovington
• Dorothy Parker
• Myrlie Evers-Williams