History of Important Civil Rights Organizations in the US

State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

National Afro-American League

Founded in 1909, today's NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Early members included W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells and Jane Addams. It has been on the front lines to end discrimination in employment and the armed forces as well as segregation in schools.

A group of student activists working on a campaign for the equal treatment of African American teachers in Norfolk, Virginia, Historical Review of Leading Black Civil Rights Organizations

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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Migration from the South accelerating by 1910, the National Urban League formed to help blacks adjust to city life in the North and fight discrimination in employment, education and housing. Among its signature programs today: Project Ready, preparing urban youth for college, work and life.

The largest Negro city in the world is located in what formerly was a fashionable residential section of New York City, Harlem, Historical Review of Leading Black Civil Rights Organizations

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National Urban League

Born out of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., the SCLC formed in 1957, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the helm, to coordinate nonviolent action aimed at desegregating bus systems across the South. The group led the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Campaign and March to Montgomery.

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Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

After breaking with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X helped start the group in 1964. Its purpose: to reconnect African Americans with their African heritage, establish economic independence and promote self-determination. The OAAU disbanded in the wake of Malcolm X's assassination in 1965.

Educator Mary McLeod Bethune sits at a desk, possibly in the Chicago Defender offices in 1942, Historical Review of Leading Black Civil Rights Organizations

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National Council of Negro Women

In 1890, newspaper editor and former slave T. Thomas Fortune formed the first major all-black civil rights organization. It targeted the South to battle discrimination and the weakening of the 14th and 15th amendments, which gave citizenship and the vote to African Americans.