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A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
Friday Feb 12, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 1909.
That was the day the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.
During the early years of the 20thcentury, the NAACP developed legal strategies to challenge anti-Black violence and segregation.
W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimke and Florence Kelley were just a few of the white and black intellectuals and activists who founded the organization.
They sensed the urgency for a civil rights organization in the wake of the 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, IL.
They hoped to combat the rapid growth of lynchings and Jim Crow statutes.
Membership ballooned to almost 90,000 in less than 10 years, with more than 50 branches nationwide.
These leaders opposed the gradualism of Booker T. Washington and fought to convince whites of the need for racial equality.
The NAACP investigated lynchings and targeted disfranchisement and segregation through a series of lawsuits.
They established a Legal Defense Fund that organized support for the Scottsboro Boys and similar cases.
They undertook the campaign to overturn the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.
This resulted in the 1954 landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.
The NAACP played a central role in the Civil Rights movement with Rosa Parks as its secretary.
They helped to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott, were centrally involved in the campaign to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, and mobilized for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
They also worked successfully towards the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The NAACP continues its important advocacy work today with some 425,000 members.
April 1 - The Promise of 1946
March 31 - Hospital Workers Stand United
March 30 - 15th Amendment Adopted
March 29 - West Coast Hotel v Parrish Decided
March 28 - Partial Meltdown at Three Mile Island
March 27 - FE Strikers Battle Police at Harvester
March 26 - Police Attack UE Amid ‘46 Strike Wave
March 25 - Centralia Coal Mine #5 Explodes
March 24 - Exxon Valdez Runs Aground
March 23 - Texas City Refinery Explosion Kills 15
March 22 - ERA Passes the Senate
March 21 - Truman Signs Loyalty Order
March 20 - Another Deadly Explosion
March 19 - Wartime President Pushes for Labor Peace
March 18 - Wartime Workers Betrayed
March 17 - The Hoggs Hollow Tragedy
March 16 - Big Bill Haywood Talks General Strike
March 15 - The Grapes of Wrath Opens in Theaters
March 14 - Remembering Walter Crane
March 13 - Ending Jim Crow on the Job
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