The Creation and Growth of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - Essay Example

The Association is capable of bringing a shared national weight and personal local forces upon each aspect of the Negro's struggle for fairness of nationality. It encompasses the total collection of civil rights activists and its constant programs of public awareness as well as its legal triumphs have made key contributions to the insurrection in a race that is now witnessed. In one way or another, it has moved by far the irresistible mass of present leaders of the Negro society through its ranks. This includes several of those currently heading other civil rights groups. Moreover, it functions as a source of information and direction and as a clearinghouse for private associations and government and for the majority of the broad public who refer to it for support every year. The association anticipates expanding its agenda to contain active concern with problems of community orientation, scarcity, and retraining. This paper seeks to discuss the roots and foundation of the association and its development. It will also seek to explain its organization, its mandates, and achievements throughout its growth.

Introduction

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the biggest, oldest, and most powerful civil rights organization in the United States. For one hundred years, it has taken a simple yet extremely complicated objective: to guarantee that African Americans are regarded as equal citizens. This objective was direct in the sense that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People only insisted on the fair and strict enforcement of the constitution, which had been modified after the civil war to eradicate involuntary servitude and slavery. According to the fourteenth revision, blacks were full citizens of the United States and were given the right to equal protection of the law as any other citizen.

The Association acts as a legal support society at the local level, but in fighting for the rights of black Americans at the national level, it chooses cases for their strategic significance, and in so far as possible goes in the courts only where there is a good possibility of victory. The organization is an interracial society, but its membership is preponderantly black. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People legal defense and education fund established in 1939 is a related but officially separate organization with a staff of lawyers.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is one of the most important societies in the United States promoting and attending courts for African Americans and other minority groups. The duty of the Association is dual: to wipe out racial prejudice, and to accomplish the legal, cultural, social, and economic fairness of minority groups. Started in 1905 by a set of social activists, the organization primarily demanded the eradication of all differences in law and policy based on race or color. The primary official meeting of the Association was held in 1909. By 1945, the Association could boast of more than 1,600 branches and 300,000 members.