James Weldon Johnson Becomes NAACP Field Secretary, Builds Southern Branches

James Weldon Johnson, poet and author of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,' became the NAACP's field secretary in 1916 and began building branches across the South and Midwest, growing membership from 9,000 in 1916 to 90,000 by 1919. His organizing built the NAACP into a genuine mass organization rather than a small Northern reform group. He became the first Black executive director of the NAACP in 1920 and led the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill campaign in Congress.