NAACP Celebrates 100 Years

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by Dwayne T. Ervin

For 100 years, the NAACP has fought against the injustices of race, housing, education, and jobs for African Americans in Chicago and across the nation.

While the organization plans to hold a series of events in celebration of its upcoming centennial from February 2009 to February 12, 2010, the Chicago Chapter is struggling to recruit new members.

The first branch of the NAACP was formed in Chicago in 1910. At one time, Chicago boasted of as many as 30,000 members.

Although the local branches including the South Side, West Side and the branch in the South Suburbs, have not officially made plans to celebrate the centennial, other branches in Illinois have scheduled programs. According to Dr. Jean Oden, secretary of the South Side Branch of the NAACP, the branch has been trying to recruit new members.

The NAACP started after riots in Springfield, Illinois on August of 1908. Ida B.Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, and William English Walling led the "Call" to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty in New York on February 12, 1909.

The representatives from Chicago were Jane Adams, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Mary E. McDowell, Louis F. Post, William M. Salter, and Prof. W. I. Thomas.

Noted as the catalyst for the largest grassroots civil rights movement that would be spearheaded through the collective efforts of the NAACP, SCLC and other Black organizations, NAACP member Rosa Parks in 1955 was arrested and fined for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The chain of events from that moment on helped spark the civil rights movement.

The Illinois Chapters of the NAACP met in Springfield last Saturday to discuss their plans to commemorate the 100 years. Two statues, built in Springfield, memorialize the riots of 1908. "Some of the events that took place were carved in from the riots," said Oden. The artist who designed the, "Race Riot Monument," is Preston Jackson.

One of NAACPs other annual events is the 40th Annual NAACP Image Awards which airs on Fox Television on Thursday at 7p.m. Academy Award-winner Halle Berry and acclaimed screenwriter/actor Tyler Perry, both recipients of an NAACP Image Award, will host the event.

More information about events or for details on how to become a member of the NAACP, log on to www.naacp.org.

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