" Lift Every Voice and Sing " is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving to God as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land."
139-566: Premiered in 1900, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black American communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a " Negro national anthem " in 1917 (with the term " Black national anthem " similarly used in the present day). It has been featured in 42 different Christian hymnals, and it has also been performed by various African American singers and musicians. Its prominence has increased since 2020 following
278-631: A Juneteenth -themed animation on its home page , set to a spoken word rendition of the hymn's first verse by LeVar Burton . In 2021, Vanessa Williams sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing" on the PBS Independence Day special A Capitol Fourth , commemorating the recognition of Juneteenth as a federal holiday. The hymn also began to be incorporated into sporting events: during NASCAR 's 2020 Pocono 350 , musicians Mike Phillips and West Byrd quoted "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as part of their rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner", while
417-691: A White or West Eurasian race among a small set of human races and imputed physical, mental, or aesthetic superiority to this White category. These ideas were discredited by twentieth-century scientists. In 1758, Carl Linnaeus proposed what he considered to be natural taxonomic categories of the human species. He distinguished between Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens europaeus , and he later added four geographical subdivisions of humans: white Europeans , red Americans , yellow Asians and black Africans . Although Linnaeus intended them as objective classifications, his descriptions of these groups included cultural patterns and derogatory stereotypes. In 1775,
556-532: A cause célèbre for what protesters considered brutal policing of the Black community: it was sung during demonstrations and other events which were held in solidarity. Presidential candidate Joe Biden referenced the hymn in his action plan for addressing perceived racial disparities in the United States, which was titled "Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan for Black America". On June 19, 2020, Google featured
695-584: A racial designation," and that the replacement of White with yellow as a description came through pseudoscientific discourse. A three-part racial scheme in color terms was used in seventeenth-century Latin America under Spanish rule. Irene Silverblatt traces "race thinking" in South America to the social categories of colonialism and state formation : "White, black, and brown are abridged, abstracted versions of colonizer, slave, and colonized." By
834-451: A confederation or separate ourselves from white people because of one song is baffling to me." In January 2021, Representative and then- House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn sponsored HR 301, a bill that proposed that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" be designated as the national hymn of the United States. Other songs have been proposed to become the national hymn of the United States in the past, and " The Star-Spangled Banner " would have remained
973-482: A definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region. In the 1870s, MP Julius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports, and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. By 1870
1112-686: A forerunner to the NAACP. On May 30, 1909, the Niagara Movement conference took place at New York City's Henry Street Settlement House; they created an organization of more than 40, identifying as the National Negro Committee . Among other founding members were Lillian Wald , a nurse who had founded the Henry Street Settlement where the conference took place. Du Bois played a key role in organizing
1251-581: A group including W. E. B. Du Bois , Mary White Ovington , Moorfield Storey , Ida B. Wells , Lillian Wald , and Henry Moskowitz . Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins . Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination". NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts, and litigation strategies developed by its legal team. The group enlarged its mission in
1390-455: A lawyer and clergyman, was elected his successor. In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt. The dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis. After such, Rupert Richardson began her term as president of the NAACP in 1992. In 1993, the NAACP's Board of Directors narrowly selected Reverend Benjamin Chavis over Reverend Jesse Jackson to fill
1529-466: A major get-out-the-vote offensive in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections . 10.5 million African Americans cast their ballots in the election; this was one million more than four years before. The NAACP's effort was credited by observers as playing a significant role in Democrat Al Gore 's winning several states where the election was close, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. During
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#17327901277351668-678: A message of unity. On April 14, 2018, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was sung by Beyoncé during her headlining performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival . In May 2018, the Tabernacle Choir performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing" during an edition of Music & the Spoken Word attended by members of the NAACP, who were in Salt Lake City for a national leadership meeting. The song
1807-483: A new constitution in 1890. Through 1908, Southern legislatures, dominated by white Southern Democrats , ratified new constitutions and laws creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. In practice, this and the Lily-white movement caused the exclusion of most blacks and many poor whites from the political system in southern states. Black voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in
1946-508: A number of Indo-European languages , but these differences were not necessarily used in respect to skin colors. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color. Similarly, the Rigveda uses krsna tvac "black skin" as a metaphor for irreligiosity. Ancient Egyptians, Mycenaean Greeks and Minoans generally depicted women as having pale or white skin while men were depicted as dark brown or tanned. As
2085-648: A poem which was themed around the struggles of African Americans following the Reconstruction era (including the passage of Jim Crow laws in the South ). "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first recited by a group of 500 students in 1900. His brother J. Rosamond Johnson would later set the poem to music. After the Great Fire of 1901 , the Johnsons moved to New York City to pursue a career on Broadway . In
2224-760: A professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee : Before the age of exploration, group differences were largely based on language, religion, and geography. ... the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color and facial structure between themselves and the populations encountered in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (see, for example, Shakespeare's dramatization of racial conflict in Othello and The Tempest ). Beginning in
2363-515: A racial or social grouping, from a diverse and often conflicting range of political and cultural perspectives; in anti-racism activism in France, from right-wing political dialogue or propaganda, and other sources. Whites in France have been studied with regard the group's historical involvement in French colonialism ; how "whites in France have played a major international role in colonizing areas of
2502-479: A result, men with pale or light skin, leukochrōs (λευκόχρως, "white-skinned") could be considered weak and effeminate by Ancient Greek writers such as Plato and Aristotle . According to Aristotle "Those whose skin is too dark are cowardly: witness Egyptians and the Ethiopians. Those whose skin is too light are equally cowardly: witness women. The skin color typical of the courageous should be halfway between
2641-444: A result, several cities refused to allow the film to open. The NAACP began to lead lawsuits targeting disfranchisement and racial segregation early in its history. It played a significant part in the challenge of Guinn v. United States (1915) to Oklahoma 's discriminatory grandfather clause , which effectively disenfranchised most black citizens while exempting many whites from certain voter registration requirements. It persuaded
2780-620: A shift towards greater use of White as a legal category alongside a hardening of restrictions on free or Christian blacks. White remained a more familiar term in the American colonies than in Britain well into the 1700s, according to historian Theodore W. Allen . Western studies of race and ethnicity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed into what would later be termed scientific racism . Prominent European pseudoscientists writing about human and natural difference included
2919-488: A test for admittance, a test used in practice to exclude people from Asia, Africa, and some European and South American countries, depending on the political climate. Although they were not the prime targets of the policy, it was not until after World War II that large numbers of southern European and eastern European immigrants were admitted for the first time. Following this, the White Australia Policy
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#17327901277353058-469: A time with limited resources and internal conflict and disbanded in 1910. Seven of the members of the Niagara Movement joined the Board of Directors of the NAACP, founded in 1909. Although both organizations shared membership and overlapped for a time, the Niagara Movement was a separate organization. Historically, it is considered to have had a more radical platform than the NAACP. The Niagara Movement
3197-441: A way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, 'Til now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from
3336-475: A woman president, except on a temporary basis, and there have been calls to name one. Lorraine C. Miller served as interim president after Benjamin Jealous stepped down. Maya Wiley was rumored to be in line for the position in 2013, but Cornell William Brooks was selected. Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the "Branch and Field Services" department and
3475-556: Is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. Description of populations as "White" in reference to their skin color is occasionally found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient or medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a White race or pan-European identity. The term "White race" or "White people", defined by their light skin among other physical characteristics, entered
3614-640: Is now made to classify people according to skin color. As at the 2016 census, it was estimated by the Australian Human Rights Commission that around 58% of the Australian population were Anglo-Celtic Australians with 18% being of other European origins, a total of 76% for European ancestries as a whole. According to the 2023 New Zealand census 67.8% or 3,383,742 people identified with a European ethnic origin, down from 70.2% in 2018, and 90.6% in 1966 . In 1926 , 95.0% of
3753-472: Is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education. As of 2007 , the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members. The NAACP's non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress , which has served as the organization's official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACP's history from
3892-651: Is where they lived. Herodotus described the Scythian Budini as having deep blue eyes and bright red hair and the Egyptians – quite like the Colchians – as melánchroes ( μελάγχροες , " dark-skinned ") and curly-haired . He also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known as Nubians , which was Aithíopes ( Αἰθίοπες , "burned-faced"). Later Xenophanes of Colophon described
4031-654: The Xanthochroi or "light Whites" of Northern Europe with the Melanochroi or "dark Whites" of the Mediterranean. Although modern neo-Nazis often invoke Nazi iconography on behalf of White nationalism , Nazi Germany repudiated the idea of a unified White race, instead promoting Nordicism . In Nazi propaganda, Eastern European Slavs were often referred to as Untermensch (subhuman in English), and
4170-576: The Aethiopians as black and the Thracians as having red hair and blue eyes. In his description of the Scythians, Hippocrates states that the cold weather "burns their white skin and turns it ruddy." The term "White race" or "White people" entered the major European languages in the later seventeenth century, originating with the racialization of slavery at the time, in the context of
4309-600: The Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Spanish Empire . It has repeatedly been ascribed to strains of blood, ancestry, and physical traits, and was eventually made into a subject of pseudoscientific research, which culminated in scientific racism , which was later widely repudiated by the scientific community. According to historian Irene Silverblatt, "Race thinking… made social categories into racial truths." Bruce David Baum, citing
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4448-777: The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill . In alliance with the American Federation of Labor , the NAACP led the successful fight to prevent the nomination of John Johnston Parker to the Supreme Court, based on his support for denying the vote to blacks and his anti-labor rulings. It organized legal support for the Scottsboro Boys . The NAACP lost most of the internecine battles with the Communist Party and International Labor Defense over
4587-555: The France national football team after he suggested that 7 of the 23-player squad were White. In 2020, French politician Nadine Morano stated that French actress Aïssa Maïga , who was born in Senegal , should "go back to Africa " if she "was not happy with seeing so many white people in France". According to the 2022 Irish census, 4,444,145 or 87.4% of the total population declared their race as “ White Irish ” and Other White, this
4726-615: The George Floyd protests ; in 2021, then House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn sponsored a bill proposing that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" be designated as the "national hymn" of the United States. James Weldon Johnson, Principal of the Edwin M. Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida , had sought to write a poem in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln 's birthday. However, amid the ongoing civil rights movement , Johnson decided to write
4865-521: The INED and INSEE for Whites in France has been analyzed, from some academic perspectives, as masking racial issues within the country, or a form of false racial color blindness . Writing for Al Jazeera , French journalist Rokhaya Diallo suggests that "a large portion of White people in France are not used to having frank conversations about race and racism." According to political sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva , "whites in France lie to themselves and
5004-532: The NFL Draft and playoff games) during the 2021 season . Some African American fans who were interviewed by NBC News felt that the NFL's decision was "pandering" that would not have a material impact on the league's pursuits of social justice. Lift every voice and sing, 'Til earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as
5143-547: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dubbed "Lift Every Voice and Sing" the "Negro national anthem", for its power in voicing a cry for liberation and affirmation for African American people. James Weldon Johnson would be appointed to serve as the NAACP's first executive secretary the following year. It has similarly been referred to as "the Black national anthem". The use of
5282-548: The National Football League announced that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" would be played or performed as part of the pre-game ceremonies of all Week 1 games during the 2020 season . The decision came as part of a new social justice campaign being introduced by the NFL, stemming from the league's acknowledgements of the Black Lives Matter movement, and its handling of players taking a knee during
5421-605: The Supreme Court of the United States to rule in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 that state and local governments cannot officially segregate African Americans into separate residential districts. The Court's opinion reflected the jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract as embodied in the earlier precedent it established in Lochner v. New York . It also played a role in desegregating recreational activities via
5560-745: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which provided for protection of the franchise, with a role for federal oversight and administrators in places where voter turnout was historically low. Under its anti-desegregation director J. Edgar Hoover , the FBI 's COINTELPRO program targeted civil rights groups, including the NAACP, for infiltration, disruption and discreditation. Kivie Kaplan became NAACP President in 1966. After his death in 1975, scientist W. Montague Cobb took over until 1982. Roy Wilkins retired as executive director in 1977, and Benjamin Hooks ,
5699-523: The failed peace talks ? ... So I think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between the Jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with money and these kind of things." NAACP President Kweisi Mfume immediately suspended Alcorn and condemned his remarks. Mfume stated, White people White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of mostly European ancestry . It
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5838-418: The gold standard , and anti-imperialism . Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights , not only for blacks but also for Native Americans and immigrants (he opposed immigration restrictions). Du Bois continued to play a pivotal leadership role in the organization, serving as editor of the association's magazine, The Crisis , which had a circulation of more than 30,000. The Crisis
5977-440: The late-night talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert , occasionally worked "Lift Every Voice and Sing" into the music that was played by his band Stay Human when the program hosted a Black guest; he stated that the hymn "connects us to the history of all the people who we stand on the shoulders of—who have marched and fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy and that we're trying to improve upon". On September 24, 2016,
6116-596: The naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach asserted that "The white color holds the first place, such as is that of most European peoples. The redness of the cheeks in this variety is almost peculiar to it: at all events it is but seldom to be seen in the rest". In the various editions of his On the Natural Variety of Mankind , he categorized humans into four or five races, largely built on Linnaeus' classifications. But while, in 1775, he had grouped into his "first and most important" race "Europe, Asia this side of
6255-515: The " Nubians " and the "fair-skinned Libyans ". The Egyptians are depicted as considerably darker-skinned than the Levantines (persons from what is now Lebanon , Israel , Palestine and Jordan ) and Libyans, but considerably lighter than the Nubians (modern Sudan ). The assignment of positive and negative connotations of White and Black to certain persons date to the very old age in
6394-422: The " degenerative hypothesis " of racial origins. He claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian inhabitants of Asia, and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor diet. He consistently believed that the degeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race . Between
6533-568: The " separate but equal " doctrine announced by the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson . The NAACP's Baltimore chapter, under president Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson , challenged segregation in Maryland state professional schools by supporting the 1935 Murray v. Pearson case argued by Marshall. Houston's victory in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) led to the formation of
6672-553: The "Youth and College" department. The "Legal" department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C. , bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state, and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division
6811-583: The 1500s, Europeans began to develop what became known as "scientific racism," the attempt to construct a biological rather than cultural definition of race ... Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race" ... . In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as White, never as yellow." Michael Keevak's history Becoming Yellow , finds that East Asians were redesignated as being yellow-skinned because "yellow had become
6950-462: The 2000 presidential election, Lee Alcorn , president of the Dallas NAACP branch, criticized Al Gore's selection of Senator Joe Lieberman for his vice-presidential candidate because Lieberman was Jewish. On a gospel talk radio show on station KHVN , Alcorn stated, "If we get a Jew person, then what I'm wondering is, I mean, what is this movement for, you know? Does it have anything to do with
7089-601: The Australian colonies, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany (forming the next biggest immigrant group after the British and Irish), France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Canada. In the 1860s, the discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating
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#17327901277357228-588: The Caucasian label, while Thomas Henry Huxley (1870) classified the same populations as Mongoloid, and Lothrop Stoddard (1920) classified as " brown " most of the populations of the Middle East , North Africa and Central Asia, and counted as "White" only the European peoples and their descendants, as well as some populations in parts of Anatolia and the northern areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Some authorities, following Huxley (1870), distinguished
7367-639: The Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. That fall, President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress before he was assassinated. President Lyndon B. Johnson worked hard to persuade Congress to pass a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations, and succeeded in gaining passage in July 1964. He followed that with passage of
7506-865: The Civil Rights Movement while it was barred from Alabama. New organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, in 1957) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, in 1960) rose up with different approaches to activism. Rather than relying on litigation and legislation, these newer groups employed direct action and mass mobilization to advance the rights of African Americans. Roy Wilkins , NAACP's executive director, clashed repeatedly with Martin Luther King ;Jr. and other civil rights leaders over questions of strategy and leadership within
7645-552: The Dutch. The discovery of diamonds and gold led to a greater influx of English speakers who were able to develop the mining industry with capital unavailable to Afrikaners. They have been joined in more subsequent decades by former colonials from elsewhere, such as Zambia and Kenya , and poorer British nationals looking to escape famine at home. Both Afrikaners and English have been politically dominant in South Africa during
7784-629: The Ganges, and all the country situated to the north of the Amoor, together with that part of North America, which is nearest both in position and character of the inhabitants", he somewhat narrows his "Caucasian variety" in the third edition of his text, of 1795: "To this first variety belong the inhabitants of Europe (except the Lapps and the remaining descendants of the Finns) and those of Eastern Asia, as far as
7923-423: The Kushites of Upper Nubia. We know the Egyptians were not oblivious to skin color, however, because artists paid attention to it in their works of art, to the extent that the pigments at the time permitted. The Ancient Egyptian ( New Kingdom ) funerary text known as the Book of Gates distinguishes "four groups" in a procession. These are the Egyptians , the Levantine and Canaanite peoples or "Asiatics",
8062-521: The Legal Defense Fund in 1939. The campaign for desegregation culminated in a unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that held state-sponsored segregation of public elementary schools was unconstitutional . Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. NAACP activists were excited about the judicial strategy. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including Edgar Nixon , its local president, and Rosa Parks , who had served as
8201-449: The NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff , Jacob Billikopf , and Rabbi Stephen Wise ." In its early years, the NAACP was based in New York City . It concentrated on litigation in efforts to overturn disenfranchisement of blacks, which had been established in every southern state by 1908, excluding most from the political system, and the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation . In 1913,
8340-413: The NAACP had been infiltrated by Communists. To distance themselves from these accusations, the NAACP purged suspected Communists from its membership, according to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 's website. The board of directors of the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in 1939 specifically for tax purposes. It functioned as the NAACP legal department. Intimidated by the Department of
8479-421: The NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson 's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy, workplaces, and hiring. African-American women's clubs were among the organizations that protested Wilson's changes, but the administration did not alter its assuagement of Southern cabinet members and the Southern bloc in Congress. By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches. It
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#17327901277358618-412: The NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years, the NAACP escalated its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the "American Negro". The NAACP devoted much of its energy during the interwar years to fight the lynching of blacks throughout
8757-401: The South as a result of such legislation. Men who had been voting for thirty years in the South were told they did not "qualify" to register. White-dominated legislatures also passed segregation and Jim Crow laws. Because hotels in the US were segregated, the men convened in Canada at the Erie Beach Hotel on the Canadian side of the Niagara River in Fort Erie, Ontario . As a result,
8896-464: The South were unable to elect representatives of their choice to office. The NAACP regularly displayed a black flag stating "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" from the window of its offices in New York to mark each lynching. It organized the first of the two 1935 New York anti-lynching exhibitions in support of the Costigan-Wagner Bill , having previously widely published an account of the Lynching of Henry Lowry , as An American Lynching , in support of
9035-464: The Supreme Court ruled against the white primary. Although states had to retract legislation related to the white primaries, the legislatures soon came up with new methods to severely limit the franchise for blacks. During the Second Red Scare the NAACP was often linked to Communism by right-wing politicians. The House Un-American Activities Committee , the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security , and security agencies sought to prove to
9174-476: The Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc., became a separate legal entity in 1957, although it was clear that it was to operate in accordance with NAACP policy. After 1961 serious disputes emerged between the two organizations, creating considerable confusion in the eyes and minds of the public. By the 1940s, the federal courts were amenable to lawsuits regarding constitutional rights, against which Congressional action
9313-429: The U.S. In the decades around the turn of the century, the rate of lynchings of blacks, particularly men, was at an all-time high. Mary White Ovington , journalist William English Walling and Henry Moskowitz met in New York City in January 1909 to work on organizing for black civil rights. They sent out solicitations for support to more than 60 prominent Americans, and set a meeting date for February 12, 1909. This
9452-439: The United States by working for legislation, lobbying, and educating the public. The organization sent its field secretary Walter F. White to Phillips County , Arkansas, in October 1919, to investigate the Elaine Race Riot . Roving white vigilantes killed more than 200 black tenant farmers and federal troops after a deputy sheriff's attack on a union meeting of sharecroppers left one white man dead. White published his report on
9591-416: The arts and media, Theatre Awards are for achievements in theatre and stage, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievements of any kind. Its headquarters are in Baltimore , Maryland . The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore , with additional regional offices in New York , Michigan , Georgia , Maryland, Texas , Colorado , and California . Each regional office is responsible for coordinating
9730-571: The chapter's Secretary, helped organize a bus boycott in Montgomery , Alabama. This was designed to protest segregation on the city's buses, two-thirds of whose riders were black. The boycott lasted 381 days. In 1956 the South Carolina legislature created an anti-NAACP oath, and teachers who refused to take the oath lost their positions. After twenty-one Black teachers at the Elloree Training School refused to comply, White school officials dismissed them. Their dismissal led to Bryan v. Austin in 1957, which became an important civil rights case. In Alabama,
9869-408: The collection of racial or ethnic information in 1978, and the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), therefore, does not provide census data on White residents or citizens in France. French courts have, however, made cases, and issued rulings, which have identified White people as a demographic group within the country. White people in France are defined, or discussed, as
10008-465: The community retained a thoroughly Dutch character. The Kingdom of Great Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars and permanently acquired South Africa from Amsterdam in 1814. The first British immigrants numbered about 4,000 and were introduced in 1820. They represented groups from England , Ireland , Scotland , or Wales and were typically more literate than
10147-595: The control of those cases and the legal strategy to be pursued in that case. The organization also brought litigation to challenge the " white primary " system in the South. Southern state Democratic parties had created white-only primaries as another way of barring blacks from the political process. Since the Democrats dominated southern states, the primaries were the only competitive contests. In 1944 in Smith v. Allwright ,
10286-584: The educational aspirations of her classmates. In 1972, Kim Weston sang the hymn as the opening number for the Wattstax Festival at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. This performance was included in the film Wattstax which was produced by Wolper Films. The musical direction and recording were both overseen by Stax Records engineer Terry Manning . In 1975, James Brown quoted a lyric from
10425-399: The efforts of state conferences in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members. In the U.S., the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board led by a chairperson. The board elects one person as the president and one as the chief executive officer for the organization. Julian Bond , civil rights movement activist and former Georgia State Senator,
10564-465: The event and presided over the proceedings. Also in attendance was Ida B. Wells-Barnett , an African-American journalist and anti- lynching crusader. Wells-Barnett addressed the conference on the history of lynching in the United States and called for action to publicize and prosecute such crimes. The members chose the new organization's name to be the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and elected its first officers: The NAACP
10703-570: The globe such as the African continent ." They have been described as a privileged social class within the country, comparatively sheltered from racism and poverty. Der Spiegel has reported how "most white people in France only know the banlieues as a kind of caricature". Banlieues , outer-city regions across the country that are increasingly identified with minority groups, often have residents who are disproportionately affected by unemployment and poverty. The lack of census data collected by
10842-609: The group came to be known as the Niagara Movement . A year later, three non-African-Americans joined the group: journalist William English Walling , a wealthy socialist; and social workers Mary White Ovington and Henry Moskowitz . Moskowitz, who was Jewish, was then also Associate Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture . They met in 1906 at Storer College , Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , and in 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts . The fledgling group struggled for
10981-488: The group, and rhetoric surrounding Whites in France experiencing poverty have been, at times, utilised by various right-wing political elements in the country. University of Lyon 's political scientist Angéline Escafré-Dublet has written that "the equivalent to a White backlash in France can be traced through the debate over the purported neglect of the 'poor Whites' in France". In 2006, French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen suggested there were too many "players of colour" in
11120-408: The historic Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan after plaintiff Sarah Elizabeth Ray was wrongfully discriminated against when attempting to board a ferry. In 1916, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted African-American scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing
11259-470: The hymn "was adopted and welcomed by a very interracial group, and it speaks of hope in being full first-class citizens in our society", used in conjunction with the U.S. national anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance during public events, "It is evident in our actions as an organization and here in America it is evidence that we are about inclusion, not exclusion. To claim that we as African-Americans want to form
11398-602: The hymn as part of his performance of the U.S. national anthem before the Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner boxing match. In 1990, singer Melba Moore released a modern rendition of the hymn, which she recorded with the assistance of other singers, including R&B artists Stephanie Mills , Freddie Jackson , Anita Baker , Dionne Warwick , Bobby Brown , Stevie Wonder , Jeffrey Osborne , and Howard Hewett ; and gospel artists BeBe & CeCe Winans , Take 6 , and The Clark Sisters , after which, "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
11537-496: The hymn was sung by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and chorus at the conclusion of the opening ceremonies of the National Museum of African American History and Culture , at which Obama delivered the keynote address. On October 19, 2017, when White supremacist leader Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida , music professor Laura Ellis played "Lift Every Voice and Sing" on the university's carillon to convey
11676-477: The individual himself, not by a group of people who think they know what is best for you." Some Conservative commentators have similarly criticized performances and references to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as the "Black national anthem" as separatist and diminishing to " The Star-Spangled Banner " as the national anthem of the United States. In response to Askew's remarks, the NAACP's then-senior vice president of advocacy and policy Hilary O. Shelton told CNN that
11815-412: The influence of the soil and the temperature, together with the mode of life, have the greatest influence". Blumenbach's conclusion was, however, to proclaim all races' attribution to one single human species. Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on environmental factors, such as solarization and diet. Like other monogenists , Blumenbach held to
11954-407: The late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct , the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people , referring to those with some African ancestry. The NAACP bestows annual awards on African Americans in three categories: Image Awards are for achievements in
12093-590: The late nineteenth century, the Colonial/State and later federal governments of Australia restricted all permanent immigration to the country by non-Europeans. These policies became known as the " White Australia policy ", which was consolidated and enabled by the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 , but was never universally applied. Immigration inspectors were empowered to ask immigrants to take dictation from any European language as
12232-466: The law. The larger conference resulted in a more diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white. Moorfield Storey , a white attorney from a Boston abolitionist family, served as the president of the NAACP from its founding to 1915. At its founding, the NAACP had one African American on its executive board, Du Bois. Storey was a long-time classical liberal and Grover Cleveland Democrat who advocated laissez-faire free markets,
12371-684: The major European languages in the later seventeenth century, when the concept of a "unified White" achieved greater acceptance in Europe , in the context of racialized slavery and social status in the European colonies. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than the idea of race. Prior to the modern era , no European peoples regarded themselves as "White", but rather defined their race in terms of their religion, ancestry, ethnicity, or nationality . Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing
12510-538: The melody of "The Star-Spangled Banner" became part of the titular suite on her 2011 CD release, The Voice of My Beautiful Country . On January 20, 2009, the Rev. Joseph Lowery , a civil rights movement leader who co-founded and is a former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference , used a near-verbatim recitation of the hymn's third stanza to begin his benediction at the inauguration ceremony for President Barack Obama . Jon Batiste , former bandleader of
12649-545: The mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, race scientists, including most physical anthropologists classified the world's populations into three, four, or five races , which, depending on the authority consulted, were further divided into various sub-races. During this period the Caucasian race , named after people of the Caucasus Mountains but extending to all Europeans, figured as one of these races and
12788-518: The mid-nineteenth century, there were few restrictions on immigration, although members of ethnic minorities tended to be assimilated into the Anglo-Celtic populations. People of many nationalities, including many non-White people, emigrated to Australia during the goldrushes of the 1850s. However, the vast majority was still White and the goldrushes inspired the first racist activism and policy, directed mainly at Chinese immigrants . From
12927-506: The mid-seventeenth century, the novel term español ("Spaniard") was being equated in written documents with blanco , or "White". In Spain's American colonies, African , Native American ( indios ), Jewish , or morisco ancestry formally excluded individuals from the "purity of blood" ( limpieza de sangre ) requirements for holding any public office under the Royal Pragmatic of 1501. Similar restrictions applied in
13066-559: The military, some religious orders, colleges, and universities, leading to a nearly all-White priesthood and professional stratum. Blacks and indios were subject to tribute obligations and forbidden to bear arms, and black and indio women were forbidden to wear jewels, silk, or precious metals in early colonial Mexico and Peru. Those pardos (people with dark skin) and mulattos (people of mixed African and European ancestry) with resources largely sought to evade these restrictions by passing as White. A brief royal offer to buy
13205-468: The military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing). The Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, New York , featured many American innovations and achievements, but also included a disparaging caricature of slave life in the South as well as a depiction of life in Africa, called "Old Plantation" and "Darkest Africa", respectively. A local African-American woman, Mary Talbert of Ohio ,
13344-581: The movement. The NAACP continued to use the Supreme Court's decision in Brown to press for desegregation of schools and public facilities throughout the country. Daisy Bates , president of its Arkansas state chapter, spearheaded the campaign by the Little Rock Nine to integrate the public schools in Little Rock , Arkansas. By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its prominence in
13483-564: The national anthem. In 1923, the male gospel group Manhattan Harmony Four recorded the hymn as "Lift Every Voice and Sing (National Negro Anthem)". It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2016. In Maya Angelou 's 1969 autobiography , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , the hymn is sung by the audience and students at Maya's eighth-grade graduation ceremony, after a white school official dashes
13622-478: The non-Māori population reached over 250,000. Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority and did so for the next 150 years. White people in France are a broad racial-based, or skin color -based, social category in French society. In statistical terms, the French government banned
13761-596: The organization's funds. In 1996, Congressman Kweisi Mfume , a Democratic Congressman from Maryland and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus , was named the organization's president. Three years later strained finances forced the organization to drastically cut its staff, from 250 in 1992 to 50. In the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch
13900-461: The past; due to the controversial racial order under apartheid , the nation's predominantly Afrikaner government became a target of condemnation by other African states and the site of considerable dissension between 1948 and 1991. There were 4.6 million Whites in South Africa in 2011, down from an all-time high of 5.2 million in 1995 following a wave of emigration commencing in the late twentieth century. However, many returned over time. In
14039-494: The places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land. Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by
14178-683: The population was of European descent. The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity of New Zealand . Whalers and sealers were often itinerant, and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance. They came from
14317-483: The position in the political spectrum of the person – where European ethnic groups and nations labeled or treated other Europeans as members of another, somehow "inferior race". Between the Enlightenment era and interwar period, the racist worldviews fit well into the liberal worldview, and they were almost general among the liberal thinkers and politicians. Definitions of White have changed over
14456-417: The position of executive director. A controversial figure, Chavis was ousted eighteen months later by the same board. They accused him of using NAACP funds for an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Following the dismissal of Chavis, Myrlie Evers-Williams narrowly defeated NAACP chairperson William Gibson for president in 1995, after Gibson was accused of overspending and mismanagement of
14595-435: The previously named whites Henry Moskowitz , Mary White Ovington , William English Walling (the wealthy Socialist son of a former slave-holding family), Florence Kelley , a social reformer and friend of Du Bois; Oswald Garrison Villard , and Charles Edward Russell , a renowned muckraker and close friend of Walling. Russell helped plan the NAACP and had served as acting chairman of the National Negro Committee (1909),
14734-655: The privileges of Whiteness for a substantial sum of money attracted fifteen applicants before pressure from White elites ended the practice. In the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean, the designation English or Christian was initially used in contrast to Native Americans or Africans. Early appearances of White race or White people in the Oxford English Dictionary begin in
14873-409: The reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "White race" as a social construct with no scientific basis. According to anthropologist Nina Jablonski : In ancient Egypt as a whole, people were not designated by color terms ... Egyptian inscriptions and literature only rarely, for instance, mention the dark skin color of
15012-678: The recent 2021 census of Hong Kong, 61,582 people identified as white representing 0.8% of the total population. In the Far East at Southeast Asia , in the Philippines , a genetic study by the National Geographic , shows that 5% of the population are Southern Europeans that had arrived due to the Spanish colonization of the archipelago, most of which are Spanish Filipinos The recent 2021 Australian census does not use
15151-590: The relatively under-developed economic status of Eastern European countries such as Poland and the USSR was attributed to the racial inferiority of their inhabitants. Fascist Italy took the same view, and both of these nations justified their colonial ambitions in Eastern Europe on racist, anti-Slavic grounds. These nations were not alone in their view; during the long nineteenth century and interwar period , there were numerous cases – regardless of
15290-610: The riot in the Chicago Daily News . The NAACP organized the appeals for twelve black men sentenced to death a month later based on the fact that testimony used in their convictions was obtained by beatings and electric shocks. It gained a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Dempsey 261 U.S. 86 (1923) that significantly expanded the Federal courts' oversight of the states' criminal justice systems in
15429-558: The river Obi, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges; and lastly, those of Northern Africa." Blumenbach quotes various other systems by his contemporaries, ranging from two to seven races, authored by the authorities of that time, including, besides Linnæus, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon , Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant . In the question of color, he conducts a rather thorough inquiry, considering also factors of diet and health , but ultimately believes that "climate, and
15568-455: The rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on 'til victory is won. Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place For which our fathers died. We have come, over
15707-462: The same country. Some countries do not ask questions about race or colour at all in their census. The social definition has also been added where possible. White Dutch people first arrived in South Africa around 1652. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, some 2,000 Europeans and their descendants were established in the region. Although these early Afrikaners represented various nationalities, including German peasants and French Huguenots ,
15846-471: The seventeenth century. Historian Winthrop Jordan reports that, "throughout the [thirteen] colonies the terms Christian , free , English , and white were ... employed indiscriminately" in the seventeenth century as proxies for one another. In 1680, Morgan Godwyn "found it necessary to explain" to English readers that "in Barbados , 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans.'" Several historians report
15985-533: The singing of the national anthem in order to protest against racial inequality and police brutality . The NFL's opening night kickoff game featured a filmed performance of the hymn by Alicia Keys at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum , which was later replayed as part of the pre-game show of Super Bowl LV on February 7, 2021. The NFL stated that it would again feature the hymn at Week 1 games and other "tentpole" events (including
16124-467: The song was exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair , taking the form of a choir of children shaped into a harp . Savage was the only Black woman commissioned for the Fair, and the sculpture (which was retitled "The Harp" by organizers) was also sold as miniature replicas and on postcards during the event. Like other temporary installations, the sculpture was destroyed at the close of the fair. In 1919,
16263-449: The state responded by effectively barring the NAACP from operating within its borders because of its refusal to divulge a list of its members. The NAACP feared members could be fired or face violent retaliation for their activities. Although the Supreme Court eventually overturned the state's action in NAACP v. Alabama , 357 U.S. 449 (1958), the NAACP lost its leadership role in
16402-515: The term "the Black national anthem" in reference to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been criticized. Timothy Askew, an associate professor at the historically Black Clark Atlanta University , argued that the use of the term "Black national anthem" could incorrectly implicate a desire of separatism by Black communities, that the lyrics of the hymn do not overtly refer to any specific race (which has inspired people to perform it outside African American communities), and "identity should be developed by
16541-499: The term “white” on their census form, therefore results showed 54.7% of the population identifying with a European ancestry. From 1788, when the first British colony in Australia was founded, until the early nineteenth century, most immigrants to Australia were English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish convicts . These were augmented by small numbers of free settlers from the British Isles and other European countries. However, until
16680-463: The time of its founding until 2003. In 2011, the NAACP teamed with the digital repository ProQuest to digitize and host online the earlier portion of its archives, through 1972 – nearly two million pages of documents, from the national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country, which offer first-hand insight into the organization's work related to such crucial issues as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in all its aspects (in
16819-666: The two." Similarly, Xenophon of Athens describes Persian prisoners of war as "white-skinned because they were never without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages" and states that Greek soldiers as a result believed "that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women." Classicist James H. Dee states "the Greeks do not describe themselves as 'White people' – or as anything else because they had no regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves." People's skin color did not carry useful meaning; what mattered
16958-426: The work of Ruth Frankenberg , states, "the history of modern racist domination has been bound up with the history of how European peoples defined themselves (and sometimes some other peoples) as members of a superior 'white race'." Alastair Bonnett argues that "white identity", as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflecting American interpretations of race and history. According to Gregory Jay,
17097-408: The world by proclaiming that they do not have institutional racism in their nation." Sociologist Crystal Marie Fleming has written; "While many whites in France refuse to acknowledge institutionalized racism and white supremacy , there is widespread belief in the specter of 'anti-white racism'". Accusations of anti-White racism, suggestions of the displacement of, or lack of representation for,
17236-400: The years that followed, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was sung within Black communities; Johnson wrote that "the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country." A sculpture by Augusta Savage named after
17375-535: The years to come. White investigated eight race riots and 41 lynchings for the NAACP and directed its study Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States . The NAACP also worked for more than a decade seeking federal anti-lynching legislation, but the Solid South of white Democrats voted as a bloc against it or used the filibuster in the Senate to block passage. Because of disenfranchisement, African Americans in
17514-491: The years, including the official definitions used in many countries, such as the United States and Brazil . Through the mid to late twentieth century, numerous countries had formal legal standards or procedures defining racial categories (see cleanliness of blood , casta , apartheid in South Africa , hypodescent ). Below are some census definitions of White, which may differ from the social definition of White within
17653-414: Was a decline from 92.4% in 2016 and 94.24% in 2011 . People who identified as “White Irish” in 2022 were 3,893,056 or 76.5% of the total population, a decline from 87.4% in 2006. As of the 2021 census, 89.1% self-identified as Caucasian racial origin. Maltese -born natives make up the majority of the island with 386,280 people out of a total population of 519,562. However, there are minorities,
17792-587: Was appalled by the exhibit, as a similar one in Paris highlighted black achievements. She informed W. E. B. Du Bois of the situation, and a coalition began to form. In 1905, a group of thirty-two prominent African-American leaders met to discuss the challenges facing African Americans and possible strategies and solutions. They were particularly concerned by the Southern states ' disenfranchisement of blacks starting with Mississippi 's passage of
17931-521: Was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by healthcare administrator Roslyn Brock . For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was effectively led by its executive secretary, who acted as chief operating officer. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White , who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were much more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years. The organization has never had
18070-631: Was entered into the Congressional Record by Del. Walter Fauntroy ( D - DC ). It was also added to the National Recording Registry in 2016. In 2008, jazz singer Rene Marie was asked to sing the national anthem at a civic event in Denver, Colorado , where she caused a controversy by substituting the words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" into the song. This arrangement of the words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" with
18209-494: Was featured as the opening and closing song of The Blues and Its People , a suite by Russell Gunn first performed on February 18, 2023 at Harlem's Apollo Theater to mark the 50th anniversary of Amiri Baraka 's book Blues People: Negro Music in White America . In mid-2020, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" began to receive renewed attention amid nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd , which became
18348-471: Was formed exclusively by African Americans. Four European Americans were among the founders of the NAACP, they included Mary White Ovington , Henry Moskowitz , William English Walling and Oswald Garrison Villard . The Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois , the state capital and Abraham Lincoln 's hometown, was a catalyst showing the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in
18487-448: Was incorporated a year later in 1911. The association's charter expressed its mission: To promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before
18626-498: Was incorporated as a formal category of both pseudoscientific research and, in countries including the United States, social classification. There was never any scholarly consensus on the delineation between the Caucasian race, including the populations of Europe, and the Mongoloid one, including the populations of East Asia. Thus, Carleton S. Coon (1939) included the populations native to all of Central and Northern Asia under
18765-544: Was influential in winning the right of African Americans to serve as military officers in World War ;I . Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 men registered for the draft. The following year, the NAACP organized a nationwide protest, with marches in numerous cities, against D. W. Griffith 's silent movie The Birth of a Nation , a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan . As
18904-470: Was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln , who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the first large meeting did not occur until three months later, the February date is often cited as the organization's founding date. The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909, by a larger group including African Americans W. E. B. Du Bois , Ida B. Wells , Archibald Grimké , Mary Church Terrell , and
19043-733: Was relaxed in stages: non-European nationals who could demonstrate European descent were admitted (e.g., descendants of European colonizers and settlers from Latin America or Africa ), as were autochthonous inhabitants (such as Maronites , Assyrians and Mandeans ) of various nations from the Middle East, most significantly from Lebanon and to a lesser degree Iraq , Syria and Iran . In 1973, all immigration restrictions based on race and geographic origin were officially terminated. Australia enumerated its population by race between 1911 and 1966, by racial origin in 1971 and 1976, and by self-declared ancestry alone since 1981, meaning no attempt
19182-516: Was used both for news reporting and for publishing African-American poetry and literature. During the organization's campaigns against lynching, Du Bois encouraged the writing and performance of plays and other expressive literature about this issue. The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar 's book A History of Jews in America notes "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of
19321-472: Was virtually impossible. With the rise of private corporate litigators such as the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil rights litigation, and the public face of the Civil Rights Movement . The NAACP's Legal department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall , undertook a campaign spanning several decades to bring about the reversal of
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