On the recordFebruary 16, 2011
I rise today to discuss this concurrent resolution that honors the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, on the occasion of its 102nd anniversary. I thank Senators Grassley, Leahy, and others for joining me in submitting this bipartisan resolution and would like to note that this resolution is particularly timely not only because the NAACP just celebrated its 102nd anniversary, but also because we are celebrating Black History Month. The NAACP was created amidst great adversity. In 1905, a group of African American civil rights activists came together to discuss prominent issues that they and many others faced in our Nation. Among those discussed issues was disenfranchisement. Despite passage of the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870, African Americans throughout the country were denied their right to one of the fundamental methods of civic engagement: the right to vote. In many circumstances Jim Crow State laws. These discussions were held on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls because hotels across America remained segregated. On February 12, 1909, the centennial of President Abraham Lincoln's birth, distinguished leaders in the struggle for civil and political liberty, which included W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells- Barnett, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, and William English Walling, created the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
