What is the NAACP?
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), interracial American organization created to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism; and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights.
​
The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot. Some of the founding members had been associated with the Niagara Movement, a civil rights group led by Du Bois
WHAT DOES NAACP STAND FOR?
Get to Know Us
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.
Vision Statement
The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.
​
The following statement of objectives is found on the first page of the NAACP Constitution – the principal objectives of the Association shall be:
-
To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens
-
To achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States
-
To remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes
-
To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights
-
To inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its elimination
-
To educate persons as to their constitutional rights and to take all lawful action to secure the exercise thereof, and to take any other lawful action in furtherance of these objectives, consistent with the NAACP’s Articles of Incorporation and this Constitution.