Honor NAACP's 109th Anniversary

Senate Resolution No. 3910 BY: Senator PARKER COMMEMORATING the 109th Anniversary of the founding of the NAACP WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to recognize and pay tribute to those enduring organizations which devote their purposeful energies to improving the quality and dignity of life of those they serve, to preserving their heritage, and to fostering pride among them; and WHEREAS, Attendant to such concern, and in full accord with its long-standing traditions, this Legislative Body is justly proud to commemorate the 109th Anniversary of the founding of the NAACP; and WHEREAS, On February 12, 2018, the NAACP will mark its 109th Anniversary; the NAACP Headquarters, based in Baltimore, Maryland, along with its 1,700 units nationwide, will host celebrations and observances throughout the year that highlight the significant role the organization has played in leading social change in America; and WHEREAS, The oldest and largest civil rights organization, the NAACP was founded in 1909, in New York City by a group of black and white citizens committed to improving the quality of life for African-Americans; and WHEREAS, Among the early leaders of the NAACP was W.E.B. DuBois, who helped establish the Niagara Movement in 1905; other early members included Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimke, Henry Moskowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard and William English Walling; and WHEREAS, In its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial discrimination; and WHEREAS, Later, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil rights litigation and the NAACP's Legal Department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign to bring about the reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine, culminating in the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education that held that state-sponsored segregation of elementary schools was unconstitutional; and WHEREAS, Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South, highlighted by a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, to protest segregation on the city's buses when two-thirds of the riders were black; and WHEREAS, During the mid-1960s, the NAACP was an active part of the Civil Rights Movement, helping to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial; and WHEREAS, That fall, President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress before he was assassinated, and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, passed a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations in 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for protection of the franchise in places where voter turnout was historically low; and WHEREAS, Today, the NAACP continues to fulfill its mission to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination; it has over 500,000 members, 1,700 branch chapters and 450 college and youth chapters; and WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body that when organizations of such noble aims and accomplishments are brought to our attention, they should be celebrated and recognized by all the citizens of the great State of New York; and WHEREAS, It is with great pleasure that this Legislative Body commends the NAACP for its excellence and for its commitment and contributions to the community it has so ably served for the past 109 years; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to commemorate the 109th Anniversary of the founding of the NAACP, fully confident that it will continue to give positive definition to the profile and disposition of the communities of this great State and Nation.