NAACP, 1926 - 2009
Scope and Contents
NAACP files include photographs, clippings, draft articles, wire articles, and notes. Organizational records are arranged separately, and include many typewritten, mimeographed internal reports, as well as legal documents, original and copy correspondence, pamphlets, and publications. Original correspondence from NAACP staff to AFRO staff is filed with organizational records. Original correspondence is found from Thurgood Marshall, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and others. Copies of correspondence between NAACP and third parties is also arranged with organizational records.
Dates
- Creation: 1926 - 2009
Biographical / Historical
The NAACP is a civil rights organization founded in the United States in 1909 by an interracial group of prominent civil rights leaders focused on the elimination of racial prejudice through local organizing, litigation, publishing, and research. Countless locally and nationally-known figures in civil rights history across the United States were a part of the NAACP, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1910 began the publication The Crisis, and Thurgood Marshall, who joined the organization's legal department, the Legal Defense Fund or LDF, under his mentor, Charles Houston, in the 1930s. The first president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP was Dr. Lillie May Carroll Jackson. The organization is known by its acronym, which stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Partial Extent
252 folders
Partial Extent
34 oversize and legal-size folders
Arrangement
Records produced by the NAACP, its committees, work groups, and branches are filed under the subheading Organizational Records. Most correspondence is found in Organizational Records, under the heading of its subject, with authors of letters noted in folder records. Folders without the Organizational Records heading contain mainly photographs and clippings. Additional material related to the NAACP is found in the Carl Murphy papers held by the AFRO Archives.
Original Location
DS0207, GFA 017; HL0502, HAL 031; ML1402, MAR 242; ML1603, MAR 284; ML1802, MAR 323; TN0601, TUB 091; TN1107, TUB 206; TN1201, TUB 249; TN1301, TUB 247; TN1301, TUB 248
Processing Information
The NAACP files have been processed using detailed processing procedures due to their volume and complexity. All the information in the finding aid has been verified against folder content, and more intensive work on arrangement and description has been done to facilitate research.
Repository Details
Part of the Afro-American Newspapers Archives/Afro Charities Repository