The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People Almost 500,000 Americans of all races are members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights organization in the world and probably the largest secular citizens action agency in the nation. Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the oldest civil rights organization as well as the most powerful and the most respected today. The NAACP is the national spokesperson for black Americans and other minorities, and for those who support civil rights objectives in America. Organized in virtually every city and town where black Americans reside, the NAACP both articulates the grievances of black Americans and protects their rights by whatever legal means necessary (Join the NAACP). Many manners are used by the NAACP to accomplish their policy goals. Three such manners are grassroots activism, lobbying, and educating.Marches, protests, canvassing, phone calls, and demonstrations are only a few devices used by the NAACP in their fight for equal rights (McBride). In October 1998, NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume and eighteen other activists were arrested during a mass demonstration to protest the “shameful and hypocritical record” of the Supreme Court Justices in hiring minority clerks. The protest was held in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., with the crowd shouting “No justice, no peace” (“Activists Arrested”). The Justices up to that point had hired only seven black Americans out of 428 clerks. Groups that participated in the demonstration included the National Bar Association, the United Auto Workers, the National Organization for Women, as well as many others (“Activists Arrested”). Mfume also participated in a protest rally March 18, 1999, in front of New York City’s Police Headquarters to decry the police killing of 22-year-old Amadou Diallo, an un...
