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Black History and Blacks in U.S. History
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Theme Unit

NAACP

NAACP
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.98

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    abolitionists, affirmative, custody, DuBois, economic, educational, entertainment, epic, equality, forefront, griffith, infamous, lynchings, membership, militant, non-violent
     content words:    Emancipation Proclamation, United States, Ku Klux Klan, New York City, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Niagara Movement, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, National Negro Committee

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NAACP
By Jane Runyon 		  
1     The Emancipation Proclamation was designed to give freedom to African-Americans. They had been forced into slavery in the United States. Abolitionists and former slaves hoped this document would give the same rights to people of color as it did to white settlers. It wasn't that easy. New laws were created to stop progress each time it was made.
 
2     The early 1900's saw a lot of unrest. Lynchings were held in various parts of the country. Whites who felt that blacks were trying to gain more freedom or ignore white laws would take the law into their own hands. Groups who did this were called vigilantes. The Ku Klux Klan was one of the more infamous of these groups.
 
3     In 1908, a deadly race riot occurred in Springfield, Illinois. Nearly 5,000 white citizens of the town stormed the jail. They demanded that the sheriff give up two black prisoners he had in custody. Violence erupted when they found that the sheriff had moved the prisoners to safety. Over the next two days they destroyed businesses and homes in the city. They killed at least two innocent black men who happened to be in their way. Federal troops had to be called in to stop the rioting.
 
4     Black and white activists saw the need to combine their efforts. Sixty people met in February of 1908 in New York City. Only seven of these people were black. W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell were three of those seven. DuBois was a leader of a militant black group called the Niagara Movement. Prominent whites in the group were Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard. Both of these people were from abolitionist families.

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