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uOn February 12, 1909, sixty people (both black and white) gathered. This meeting was due to the fact that violence against blacks had been growing. The event that sparked this meeting's necessity was the rioting in Springfield, Illinois in which the citizens of the town wanted to force all blacks out. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was founded in 1909 by a group of blacks and whites dedicated to the protection of the civil rights of colored people. This organization became the largest and most powerful organization of its kind dedicated to the protection of civil rights.

uuu The mission of the NAACP is to ensure equality in all forms for minorities by removing the barriers of discrimination.

uuu NAACP founders include Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard and William English Walling. The NAACP is now a network of more than 2,200 affiliates covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Japan and Germany. It is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland and total membership exceeds 500,000.

uuuSince its establishment, the NAACP has fought for civil rights and equality among the minorities of society. One such battle was one against the so-called grandfather clause. This clause said that only those people whose grandfather's had voted could vote. This ensured the inability of blacks to vote. They also boycotted films that showed biased views of blacks such as Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith. The NAACP also boycotted books because of their glorification of the Ku Klux Klan such as the notorious anti-Negro novel by Thomas Dixon called Clansmen.

uuuThroughout its history, the NAACP witnessed many events that marked the advancement of colored people in the United States but the most important, beyond a doubt, seems to have been the Supreme Court decision in 1954 denouncing racial segregation. This was one large step towards one of the organizations' goals, equality. This decision helped pave the way for other monumental points in the history of minority advancement in the U.S. such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

uuToday, the NAACP continues to lead against injustices against minorities. They play a large role in involvement in each jurisdiction. This varies from programs involving youth and adults. The magazine Crisis is also published. This magazine was created in 1910 by W.E.B. DuBois and is said to stand for: "the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable earnest and persistent to gain these rights and realized these ideals." -W.E.B. DuBois The NAACP also sponsors programs designed to maintain all that has been fought for through the years.

qqqLearn more about how the NAACP affected Ida B. Well's Life