Analyse the Impact the Naacp Had on the Civil Rights Movement in the Us

Analyse the impact the NAACP had on the Civil Rights Movement in the USA.

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) is the oldest, largest, most recognised and most influential civil rights organisation in American history. It was founded on the 12th of February, 1909 by a group of multi racial men and women who stood for political, educational, social and economic equality. Members of the group were political activists W.E.B Du Bois, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. They had a huge impact throughout the Civil Rights Movement, involved in nearly every major protest and giving advanced legal support and advice to negro clients.

The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Disgusted by the violence, a group that included Mary White Ovington, a descendant of abolitionists, William English Walling, Dr. Henry Moscowitz and W.E.B Du Bois created an organisation that, similar to Du Bois' Niagara Movement, set out to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution; which promised to end slavery, the equal protection of the law, and universal adult male suffrage, respectively.

The NAACP's principal objective was to "...ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice" (quote from http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history). The group worked towards removing all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes. They aimed their campaign at the legal political framework of the United States, taking many cases on the Civil Rights Movement to the Supreme Court.

The Civil Right Movement (1950s - 1960s) was a time in American history where protests happened all around the country, promoting and fighting to outlaw racial discrimination and segregation against the African Americans. Protests were mostly non-violent, and included marches, sit-ins and freedom rides. Most of these forms of protest received national attention to the discrimination and segregation that was happening in America, particularly in the southern states where the majority of the black population resided. The NAACP was involved with many of these protests in one way or another.

In the early days of the the Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP was centre stage in the fight against racial discrimination that was present in many parts of American society. The NAACP had had many legal achievements throughout the early part of the 20th century, though the organistation's first major legal triumph in the Civil Rights Movement was Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. The NAACP had won other cases a couple of years earlier, such as Shelley vs. Kraemer in 1948 (which ended the enforcement of racially restricted covenants, a practice that disapproved blacks from purchasing homes in white neighbourhoods) and cases in Texas and Oklahoma in 1950 that struck down laws that required segregated graduate schools (Sweatt vs. Painter and McLaurin vs. Oklahoma). They smaller legal achievements had a great impact on the civil rights movement because they led up to the NAACP's greatest victories. Brown vs. Board of education being the first.

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the NAACP (fronted by their Special Counsel; Thurgood Marshall) challenged the 'separate but equal' doctrine before the Supreme Court. They won their four cases, with the court unanimously agreeing that 'the doctrine of separate but equal has no place in the nation's public schools' and was defying the American constitution. This decision was one of the NAACP's greatest achievements and had a great impact on the civil rights movement because it showed that the Supreme Court could be used to over turn discriminatory state laws. The decision also meant that the 'Jim Crow' laws that relied on the idea of 'separate but equal' could be challenged as being 'unconstitutional'. This historic decision inspired a mass movement by blacks and sympathetic whites to end racial segregation and inequality. By the end of 1955, over 500 schools had been integrated.

The NAACP was involved in the desegregation of Little Rock High School, Arkansas, a result of the court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. The organisation helped in the desegregation of the school by removing the state troops by getting a court order so the school could be integrated. The NAACP provided the legal and political assistance to support the integration of many schools in the south. In 1964, the NAACP, along with CORE and SNCC, established 30 Freedom Schools

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