Chapter 14, "NAACP: The Beginning" Summary and Analysis

Du Bois resigns from Atlanta University to take the job of Director of Publicity and research for the new National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. The organization is founded by whites with the goal of helping African Americans push for increased civil rights. The spark that brings the NAACP together is in 1908 when Springfield race riots result in 80 injuries, six deadly shootings and two lynching. Racist newspaper and governors statements about the riots anger a passionate reformer named Walling who writes article in The Independent asking what large organization can come to the aid of blacks. Mary Ovington helps pull together an organization to do the job. Oswald Villard, the son of railroad baron and philanthropist Henry Villard, is a publisher who writes a document explaining why a large...