The NAACP was founded in 1909 to fight racial discrimination and defend civil rights in the United States.
NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The organization emerged after racial violence, especially the 1908 Springfield race riot in Illinois, prompted reformers to create a permanent national civil-rights group.
Its work combined litigation, lobbying, public education, and local activism. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, originally connected to the organization, developed the legal strategy that led to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The organization also challenged lynching, segregation, voter suppression, and employment discrimination.
The NAACP is sometimes confused with SNCC, CORE, or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Those groups became especially prominent during the mass-protest phase of the 1950s and 1960s, while the NAACP had already built a national legal and membership network decades earlier.