1909
President William Howard Taft, seeking to rebuild the Republican Party in the white South, supported the 'lily-white' movement that purged Black officials from Republican Party positions throughout the South. Taft appointed fewer Black men to federal positions than any president since before the Civil War. His policy of appeasing Southern white racism while withdrawing support from Black Republicans represented another step in the federal government's abandonment of Black political rights that had been underway since 1877.
On the centennial of Lincoln's birth, a multiracial coalition including Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell, Mary White Ovington, and Moorfield Storey issued the 'Call,' founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP was explicitly formed to combat lynching, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow segregation through legal action, lobbying, and public pressure. It became the primary institutional vehicle for Black civil rights for the next six decades.
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Key events
- February 12, 1909NAACP Founded in Response to Springfield Massacre
On the centennial of Lincoln's birth, a multiracial coalition including Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell, Mary White Ovington, and Moorfield Storey issued the 'Call,' founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP was explicitly formed to combat lynching, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow segregation through legal action, lobbying, and public pressure. It became the primary institutional vehicle for Black civil rights for the next six decades.
- March 1909President Taft Supports 'Lily-White' Movement, Purging Black Republicans from Southern Offices
President William Howard Taft, seeking to rebuild the Republican Party in the white South, supported the 'lily-white' movement that purged Black officials from Republican Party positions throughout the South. Taft appointed fewer Black men to federal positions than any president since before the Civil War. His policy of appeasing Southern white racism while withdrawing support from Black Republicans represented another step in the federal government's abandonment of Black political rights that had been underway since 1877.