I attended a meeting with some members of the NAACP ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in Portland. The function of this group is to provide an equal opportunity for Blacks across the world to be successful in their communities. They do this through a peaceful means. The organization was founded in 1909 as the NNC in an effort to renew the struggle for political and civil liberty among Blacks in a White America. This has been a long and not so peacful struggle for its members. This group has lead the way for many African Americans to have the same God given rights as White Americans in their own communities. They have also provided a sense of security among Black communities struggling for civil equality as they have been at the head of some of the most significant and effective systems of breaking down racial barriers in history. To further assist those in need they provide a crisis hotline and several plans of action to adress comminity concerns nation wide.
Some of their accomplishments since being founded include applying pressure on President Woodrow Wilson to make a public statement against lynchings in 1919, placing large ads in major newspapers with facts and statistics about lynching by 1922, and in 1935 a young attorney by the name of Thurgood Marshal won a significant court battle allowing a Negro to be admitted to University of Maryland. Also in 1948 President Truman signed the Truman Executve order stating that no Federal Government agency could practice any discriminating policies, in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus, breaking the laws of the south and sparking what would be known as the single largest civil rights movement in American history eventually making way for the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act in 1965.
The NAACP has grown in numbers large enough to have representation in all fifty states and some parts of Europe.