The organization founded in 1909 to fight for African American civil rights was the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The NAACP emerged from the National Negro Committee, formed amid growing outrage over racial violence, lynching, disenfranchisement, and segregation. The 1908 Springfield race riot in Illinois helped galvanize reformers, who sought a national organization capable of challenging racial injustice through public advocacy and the courts.
Its founders and early leaders included W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, and Mary Church Terrell. The interracial character of the organization was notable: some founding members were African American activists, while others were white reformers committed to civil rights.
The group soon became known for legal challenges to Jim Crow laws. Its litigation helped produce major victories, including Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The Black Panthers, CORE, and SNCC were important later movements or organizations, but they were not the organization founded in 1909 described here.