State Historical Society of Iowa

"National Negro Committee" Platform, 1909

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Courtesy of Library of Congress, "Platform Adopted by the National Negro Committee," 1909

Description

William English Walling's exposé about a bloody race riot in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln's hometown and burial site, resulted in the assembly of an interracial group to discuss proposals for an organization that would advocate the civil and political rights of African Americans in January 1909. The group issued a "call" resulting in the first National Negro Conference held in New York on May 31 and June 1, 1909. At the second annual meeting on May 12, 1910, the Committee adopted the formal name of the organization — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP's goals were the abolition of segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial violence, particularly lynching.

Transcript of the 1909 National Negro Committee Platform

Source Dependent Questions

  • Examine the list of National Negro Committee members endorsing the platform at the beginning of the document. What do you notice? How might this variety have strengthened the group? What kind of people do you think could have been recruited to the group to make it stronger and more effective?
  • How did the National Negro Committee link African American prosperity to that of Whites and the nation as a whole? Why did the committee argue that the former was necessary for the latter?
  • Using evidence from the text, explain the the foundational pieces the committee identified as necessary for "remedying these national wrongs.
  • Compare this document to other documents in this source set, such as Why Disfranchisement is Bad (1904), Guinn v. United States (1914) or A New Reconstruction Letter (1919). What message did the authors of these documents share that were similar? What messages were different?

Citation Information

"Platform Adopted by the National Negro Committee," 1909. Courtesy of Library of Congress Courtesy of Library of Congress

State Historical Society of Iowa

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