Existing comment:
Birth of the NAACP:
IN the two months preceding the Springfield race riot, no less than 25 African Americans had been lynched in the United States. In 1908 lynching had become so routine that it hardly qualified as news. Violence was regularly perpetuated against blacks by the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups.
The 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, inspired a national conference, held in New York City, in conjunction with the Lincoln centennial. It was beginning of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Abraham Lincoln began the emancipation of the Negro American," the new organization declared. "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proposed to complete it." |