In Its Beginnings

The NAACP was founded February 12, 1909 partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois. In an article by William English Walling titled, Race War in the North. Walling described a massive race riot directed at Black residents that lead to 7 death, 40 homes and 24 businesses destroyed and 107 indictments against rioters.

Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group white liberals. William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrision Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois.

Advocating For and Protecting Civil Rights in Alachua County Since 1945