The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Its Strategy

Abstract

In the fifty-odd years of its existence, the NAACP has become a major American institution. It functions at the center of the civil rights revolution as a day-to-day pressure group in much the same manner as do the other civil rights forces. Based on a pervasive and generally vigorous national structure of branches, youth councils, and college chapters operating in every state and spearheaded by a headquarters staff and a number of field offices, the Association can bring to bear both a collective national weight and individual local forces upon every facet of the Negro's fight for equality of citizen ship. The NAACP covers the entire range of civil rights action. Its legal victories and its ceaseless programs of public enlightenment have made major contributions to the revolution in race which we are now witnessing. Through its ranks in one way or another have moved by far the overwhelming majority of today's leaders of the Negro community, including many of those now heading other civil rights groups. It also operates as a source of information and guidance and as a clearing house for government and private organizations and for tens of thousands of the general public who turn to it for assistance every year. It expects to expand its program to include active concern with problems of poverty, retraining, and community orientation.