NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed in 1911 by a biracial group of progressives and civil rights advocates. By the 1930s it had become the leading civil rights organization in the United States. The NAACP charted a course of litigation to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and to end segregation in American life. It built on state and local chapters, raised money through national and local campaigns, and conducted public relations campaigns to raise its visibility. The NAACP gained significant membership in the 1940s and it carried the lead litigation in the Brown v. Board of Education case. In Virginia, as in other southern states, the NAACP's focus on litigation and legal strategy was successful to a point, but other black local and national organizations came forward in the fifties to push for changes not only in the law but also in the practices and customs of everyday life in the South.