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NAACP Interactive Timeline Resources

 

Educational Resources

 

Explore. Discover. Learn. Take a journey over the last 100 years and understand the impact and influences of the NAACP. Organized around 10 historical milestones, the timeline provides context for some of the most significant events in history through a media-rich interactive timeline filled with historic video, celebrity narration, interesting facts and photographs. Use the NAACP Interactive Timeline in the classroom or at home, and expand your knowledge the milestones, people and events that illustrate the organization's impact on civil rights, science, the arts, law and more.

1909: Lincoln's Dream
Long before the Emancipation Proclamation "freed" the slaves, African Americans were the change agents of their own liberation. Inspired by the abolitionist movement, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Ida B. Wells, Henry Moskowitz and William English Walling, a multi-racial and multi-religious group of social and political activists, founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.


1915: Birth of a Race
When President Woodrow Wilson screened D.W. Griffith's racially inflammatory "Birth of a Nation" at the White House in 1915, he proclaimed, "It is like history written with lightning." Unlike Wilson, the NAACP wasn't bamboozled by the lies and distortions the film represented. The NAACP's protest against the film marked the beginning of a profound and ongoing commentary on Hollywood and the power of media to shape our world. The NAACP continues to be the preeminent civil rights organization that monitors the pervasive influence of the entertainment industry and mass media.


1919: Lynch Law
The most savage and brutal example of white supremacy was a lynch mob. In 1919 the NAACP published a landmark report, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States: 1889-1918. The report was the foundation used to end this brutal form of political and economic terrorism. To show that the members of the organization would not be intimidated, it held its 1920 annual conference in Atlanta, considered at the time to be one of the most active Ku Klux Klan areas in America. This fight against racially incited violence continues today with monitoring of hate speech, fighting for stronger hate crime legislation and addressing police accountability issues.


1931: Smart & Safe
The NAACP provided legal, financial, and moral support in the 1930s, when the Scottsboro Boys were unfairly convicted in the 1950s, when the family of Emmett Till struggled for justice and most recently during the murder trial of Sean Bell. The NAACP's historic struggle for equal justice continues today through "Smart & Safe," an advocacy agenda to ensure safe communities, and public safety as a civil and human right.


1948: Executive Order 9981
Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The blood of Attucks nourished the tree of liberty..." He was referring to Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, who was the first patriot killed in the Boston Massacre, the spark that ignited the American Revolution. From the Revolution, through the Civil War, to our current war against global terrorism, African Americans have heroically sacrificed their lives to protect all of our freedoms even when their basic rights as citizens were denied. The NAACP was on the frontlines of the battle to end discrimination in the Armed Forces.


1954: Separate and Unequal
NAACP Litigation Director Charles Hamilton Houston and its Legal Counsel Thurgood Marshall, fought 26 cases before the Supreme Court, none more important than Brown v. Board of Education. Comprised of five anti-discrimination lawsuits Brown v. Board is one of the major legal landmarks guaranteeing the right to equality in American society. Education is the key to full citizenship. The NAACP continues to fight for quality education as an essential civil and human right.


1955: Resistance and Civil Disobedience
The NAACP has always respectfully recognized that unjust laws must be addressed by the government and in the courts. But organized, peaceful protests are sometimes needed to put the issues in front of the court of public opinion. Organized civil disobedience is the foundation upon which the Civil Rights Movement was built -- from the Silent March of 1917 led by James Weldon Johnson, the Montgomery bus boycott inspired by Rosa Parks and lunch counter Sit Ins and the Freedom Rides organized by students to the historic March on Washington.


1965: We the People
Americans have one of the greatest rights any free people can have: the right to vote. Historically the NAACP has led legal challenges against voter discrimination in three areas: white primaries, poll tax, and other insidious registration barriers. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 during President Johnson's administration were milestone achievements and the NAACP's role in these victories cannot be minimized. The NAACP has stood strong so that we as Americans can live in a truly free society and voting is the right that makes us free. The NAACP will be forever vigilant in making sure that the right to vote is protected for all Americans regardless of race, creed or color.


1981: The Color of Money
From its inception, the NAACP has been uncompromising in its fight for Fairness and Opportunity. Equal opportunity and economic equality have been cornerstones of the NAACP's mission. Since African Americans infuse an estimated $700 billion into the American economy annually, the NAACP is dedicated to accelerating economic growth in our communities and eliminating existing racial and ethnic economic disparities. The NAACP has insisted that color should not be a barrier in a worker's quest for fair employment and promotion.


2010: The Next 100 Years
The Election of Barack Obama 44th President of the United StatesFor 100 years the NAACP has been both a beacon and refuge for American citizens in search of freedom, justice, and equality. In its original Call, the founders of the NAACP declared that "Discrimination once permitted cannot be bridled....We call upon all the believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty." Answering the call inspired by those words is just as vital and necessary to the future of America. Heading into the 21st century, the NAACP is focused on disparities in economics, health care, education, voter empowerment and the criminal justice system while continuing its role as legal advocate for civil rights issues.

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