NAACP Commemorates 100th Anniversary with Plaque

by peder.sande | June 9, 2009 at 10:50 am

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Mayor Bloomberg presented a plaque today commemorating the first NAACP meeting and 100th anniversary taken place on May 30th, 1909.

The NAACP is getting a plaque at the Manhattan site where the organization held its first meeting 100 years ago.

The first NAACP meeting was held in the Cooper Union's Great Hall in the East Village.

The President and CEO of NAACP, Benjamin Todd Jealous, was in Manhattan to receive the plaque.

The NAACP founding date coincided with Abraham Lincoln's 100th year anniversary of abolishing slavery. Aligned with funding and political proponents NAACP presided over many civil suits to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson: the supreme courts 'separate but equal' doctrine, which put an end to segregation. Without NAACP, these civil issues as well as the civil rights landscape would be vastly unchanged.

. Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans.