National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), interracial American organization created to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism; and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights. The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot. Some of the founding members had been associated with the Niagara Movement, a civil rights group led by Du Bois

The NAACP faced competition from various groups offering alternative strategies for racial advancement. In 1941 labour leader A. Philip Randolph’s threat to stage a march on Washington, D.C., prodded Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue an executive order against employment discrimination in the wartime defense industries. The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) also undertook small-scale civil disobedience to combat segregation in Northern cities.

The Freedom Rides of 1961 signalled the beginning of a period when civil rights protest activity grew in scale and intensity. CORE sponsored the first group of bus riders who sought to desegregate Southern bus terminals. After attacks by white mobs in Alabama turned back the initial protesters, student activists from Nashville and other centres of sit-in activities continued the rides into Jackson, Mississippi, where they were promptly arrested for disobeying racial segregation rules. Despite U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s plea for a “cooling-off” period, the Freedom Rides demonstrated that militant but nonviolent young activists could confront Southern segregation at its strongest points and pressure the federal government to intervene to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans. The Freedom Rides encouraged similar protests elsewhere against segregated transportation facilities and stimulated local campaigns in many Southern communities that had been untouched by the student sit-ins.