How the National Association
for the Advancement of
Colored People
Began
HOW THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE BEGAN
THE National Association for theAdvancement of Colored Peopleis five years old—old enough, it is believed,to have a history; and I, whoam perhaps its first member, havebeen chosen as the person to recite it.As its work since 1910 has been setforth in its annual reports, I shallmake it my task to show how it cameinto existence and to tell of its firstmonths of work.
In the summer of 1908, the countrywas shocked by the account of the raceriots at Springfield, Illinois. Here, inthe home of Abraham Lincoln, a mobcontaining many of the town’s “bestcitizens,” raged for two days, killed andwounded scores of Negroes, and drovethousands from the city. Articles onthe subject appeared in newspapers andmagazines. Among them was one in theIndependent of September 3d, by WilliamEnglish Walling, entitled “RaceWar in the North.” After describingthe atrocities committed against thecolored people, Mr. Walling declared:
“Either the spirit of the abolitionists,of Lincoln and of Lovejoy mustbe revived and we must come to treatthe Negro on a plane of absolute politicaland social equality, or Vardamanand Tillman will soon have transferredthe race war to the North.” Andhe ended with these words, “Yet whorealizes the seriousness of the situation,and what large and powerful body ofcitizens is ready to come to their aid?”
It so happened that one of Mr. Walling’sreaders accepted his question andanswered it. For four years I had beenstudying the status of the Negro inNew York. I had investigated his housingconditions, his health, his opportunitiesfor work. I had spent manymonths in the South, and at the timeof Mr. Walling’s article, I was livingin a New York Negro tenement on aNegro street. And my investigations andmy surroundings led me to believe withthe writer of the article that “the spiritof the abolitionists must be revived.”
So I wrote to Mr. Walling, and aftersome time, for he was in the West, wemet in New York in the first week ofthe year 1909. With us was Dr. HenryMoskowitz, now prominent in the administrationof John Purroy Mitchell,Mayor of New York. It was then thatthe National Association for the Advancementof Colored People was born.
It was born in a little room of aNew York apartment. It is to be regrettedthat there are no minutes ofthe first meeting, for they would makeinteresting if unparliamentary reading.Mr. Walling had spent some years inRussia where his wife, working in thecause of the revolutionists, had sufferedimprisonment; and he expre