Question

Examine the effectiveness of the NAACP and the club movement in furthering the goal of equality for African-Americans.

Answer 1

1. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington and Moorfield Storey.

Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination." National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts and litigation strategies developed by its legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development.

The NAACP has made an indelible mark on our history in the fight for civil rights. From its inception, the organization has advocated for the fair and equal treatment of African Americans and continues to “tear down the legal and social structure of racial segregation.” (Salamon 2002) The NAACP’s political advocacy has garnered numerous victories such as the passing of anti-lynching laws in some states and the Brown vs. Board of Education case, making education segregation unlawful, and continues to influence the issues of social and racial injustices. The creation of this “indigenous nonprofit organization” (Solomon 528) allowed the founders of the NAACP to begin meeting the specific cultural and socioeconomic needs of the disadvantage, underrepresented, in most cases unrepresented African Americans. The NACCP was, from the onset, able to set in to action strategies to defend the rights of its constituents throughout America and the world. Its success in drawing alliances, both black and white, representing a wide array of social service groups, continues to serve as the bridge to vital resources needed to meet the diverse needs of African Americans.

2. Club movement, American women’s social movement founded in the mid-19th century to provide women an independent avenue for education and active community service. Before the mid-1800s most women’s associations, with some notable exceptions, were either auxiliaries of men’s groups or church-sponsored aid societies. Without a doubt, women played active and integral roles in these groups, but the direction and administration of such organizations were usually controlled by men.

By the late 19th century a great number of women’s clubs had sprung up across the country, and in 1890 Croly and Charlotte Emerson Brown founded an umbrella organization, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC), to coordinate the clubs’ activities. A parallel movement and organization arose among upper-middle-class African American women, who focused on issues of race as well as on educational and community concerns; their efforts culminated in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896. The GFWC pushed the club movement more decisively in the direction of voluntary civic service by formulating a national public-minded agenda for clubs belonging to the federation. By the time women won the vote in 1920, however, the club movement had lost much of its momentum, as new avenues for change opened to women. The GFWC and the NACW remained active, and, although they undertook similar projects and had comparable goals, they remained distinct bodies.