The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog » naacp

Benjamin L. Hooks: 1925 – 2010

The Editors — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:38:20 +0000

In one sense, Benjamin L. Hooks, the former Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who died today at 85, was a spectacular example of successes of the twentieth-century African-American freedom struggle.

Critical Census Mistake: Mis-Counting Prisoners

The Editors — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:46:53 +0000

By Ryan P. Haygood The 2010 Census affords a unique opportunity to harness the momentum of African-American civic engagement that was forged in the 2008 Presidential election — this time, to ensure complete African-American inclusion.

Obama at Year One

The Editors — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:31:02 +0000

By John Payton
A year ago, we could barely contain our excitement as we contemplated a historic achievement. Barack Obama had won a decisive victory. There was widespread enthusiasm for his Presidency. Right after the election, Gallup reported that 68 percent of the public was proud that Obama was President. His choices of Senator Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, of Eric Holder to be Attorney General and of Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense were well received. His Inaugural speech was brilliant. We were looking forward to acknowledging and confronting fundamental problems that have plagued our society for decades.

Working for Freedom: “The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement”

The Editors — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:59:08 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Writing with an easy command of a mountain of material that encompasses six decades of enormous changes in America, Sullivan shows how critical the NAACP, now celebrating its centennial, was to the Civil Rights Movement’s ultimate legal and legislative victories that made the United States a democracy in fact not just in rhetoric.

Margaret Bush Wilson, former Chair of the NAACP, Dies at 90

The Editors — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:21:04 +0000

By The Editors Margaret Bush Wilson, the former Chair of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died August 11 in St. Louis. Missouri. She was 90 years old.

Coming of Age with the NAACP

The Editors — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:28:51 +0000

By Tananarive Due
The NAACP means much more to me than its landmark victories or a century of interracial social struggle—it is where I was raised.

Diversity in Hollywood: Out of Focus and Out of Sync

The Editors — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:11:09 +0000

The entertainment industry, particularly television, remains a landscape of limited opportunities for black Americans and other people of color, according to a report released December 18 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP study, the latest of a series it’s done on Hollywood, asserted that people of color face “employment [...]

Julian Bond gives up Chairmanship of the NAACP

The Editors — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:28:07 +0000

Julian Bond, the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said last week that he’s giving up his post when his three-year term ends this coming February. Bond, who has led the NAACP’s national board for ten years, said he will continue as a member of that body but had determined [...]