Working under the gloom of court-sanctioned segregation, the NAACP published a study in 1919 documenting 3,224 lynchings and in 1930 blocked the appointment of a racist judge to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1941 it helped pressure President Roosevelt to ban discrimination by defense contractors.
Attorney Thurgood Marshall argued the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case before the high court, which ruled that segregated schools are unconstitutional. The NAACP rallied nine black schoolchildren who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
Membership boomed to 540,000 during a decade of hard-fought legislative victories capped by the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Leaders hesitantly backed the 1963 March on Washington, fearing it might hurt their efforts. That year Mississippi field secretary Medgar Evers was murdered, one of several members killed fighting segregation.
Desegregation efforts continued in the 1970s and 1980s in cities like Boston, where court-ordered busing sparked violent protests. As legal barriers fell but jobs remained elusive, the group pushed for affirmative-action programs.
After decades of debate about how to reaffirm its relevance, the NAACP began courting youths last year (boosting membership to a record 640,000) and reached out to gangs and black nationalists like Louis Farrakhan.
