NAACP at Cooper Union, Great Hall

The first public meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was convened in 1909 at the The Great Hall of The Cooper Union, located in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenue. The NAACP is the oldest civil rights organization in the United States and was formed by an inter-racial group of African American and White activists in New York City in response to the continued violence faced by African-Americans around the country. The inter-racial group that founded NAACP included W. E. D. DuBois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Archibald Grimké, Mary White Ovington, Florence Kelley, Mary Church Terrell among others who were concerned about the challenges faced by African Americans particularly after the Springfield (Illinois) Race Riots in 1908. The NAACP had been at the forefront of many successful campaigns that began with a focus on anti-lynching to overturning legal segregtrion and the continued efforts towards racial justice in the United States. The growth and changes of the NAACP mirrors the growth of African American political power and the heated debates it has engendered that continue today with the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Race Riots in Springfield, Illinois, the state capital and hometown of President Abraham Lincoln in 1908 catalyzed the urgent need for an organization that advocated for the civil rights of African Americans. At this time the rate of lynchings of African Americans, particularly men was also extremely high. In response to the Springfield riots a group of Black, White, Jews, and Gentiles met in NYC to address the deteriorating condition of African American in the U. S. and proposed to fight the racist system with a “new abolitionist movement”, which was the eventual founding of the NAACP. On May 30, 1909 the Niagara Movement conference was held at the Henry Street Settlement House in Lower East Side, NYC and the Negro National Committee was born that preceded the formal formation of the NAACP.

Ida B. Well, Founder

W. E. B. DuBois, Founder

Mary White Ovington, Founder

The NAACP had a permanent home at 70 Fifth Avenue until July 1923. It is at this NAACP headquarters that W. E. D. DuBois established the first magazine dedicated to African Americans, called The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races that is still printed today, making it the oldest continuous printed Black magazine from 1910.

From its Fifth avenue home the NAACP from 1920 to 1938 would fly a flag with the words “A Man was Lynched Yesterday” to mark the lynching of an African-American anywhere in the U.S. This campaign was developed after the 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco Texas and stopped only because the landlord at 70 Fifth Avenue threatened eviction. At this time the NAACP’s mission was the abolition of segregation, discrimination, and racial violence, particularly lynching.

References

History.com Editors, NAACP, Jan 25th 2021, https://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/naacp

1859: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, The Evolution of New York city, Fine Arts Prints, Retrieved on May 4, 2021 https://www.history101.nyc/cooper-union-and-astor-place-1859

founding-and-early-years.html#obj3

The NAACP’s “ A Man was Lynched Yesterday” flag has been reprised and hangs in New York City, Retrieved on May 4, 2021 https://qz.com/727602/the-naacps-a-man-was-lynched-yesterday-flag-has-been-reprised-and-hangs-in-new-york-city/