Marking the NAACP’s 100th Anniversary

Today marks the 100-year anniversary of the NAACP. Formed by a multi-racial coalition in 1909, the urgency to form the civil rights group was sparked in 1908, during a deadly race riot in Springfield, Illinois. Nearly a century later Barack Obama launched his campaign not far from where the riot lynchings took place. Now that Obama has become our first African-American president it doesn’t mean that the work of the NAACP is done. For a look at the challenges that the NAACP faces in moving it’s mission into its second century, we turn to our contributor Patrik Henry Bass. He is the Senior Editor of Essence magazine, and author of Like A Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963.