NAACP Empowerment Programs, Inc. HQ

Founded in 1909, by a multiracial group of progressive thinkers, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a non-profit, membership organization established with the objective of insuring the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority groups. The NAACP has as its mission the goal of eliminating racial prejudice and removing all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes.

For over a century, from school and workplace desegregation, voter registration to health and economic empowerment training, the NAACP has played a significant role in establishing legal precedents to improve the quality of life of those who are socially, politically, economically and environmentally disenfranchised. As the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, the NAACP has worked successfully with allies of all races who believe in and stand for the principles on which the organization was founded.

The NAACP continues to champion and advocate for the civil rights of all Americans, particularly those in marginalized communities. Currently, economic downturns have left millions of Americans without full-time employment and benefits. Despite moderate gains made with the Affordable Care Act, severe disparities are once again trying to surface in health care access and quality. The criminal justice system is marred by racial disparities overburdening everyday taxpayers. Climate justice has become an essential civil right that the NAAACP is committed to demanding programs and policies that shore up (and not damage) our environment in order to defend the future of our planet.

Fighting for educational equality, equal protection under the law, good jobs, quality affordable health care, clean energy, economic empowerment and labor rights are all central core values of our work in the past, present, and will continue to be the cornerstone of the NAACP's work in the future.

The NAACP views all forms of diversity as being important, particularly, race, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disability. The NAACP has a broad non-discrimination policy and strives to uphold this through the staff, governance, and partnerships.

NAACP mission-based advocacy initiatives concentrate on the root causes of structural discrimination. Strategically, campaigns and initiatives are created to challenge systemic social barriers and discriminatory public policies suppressing opportunities for disadvantaged communities. The NAACP has national priority focus on education reform, health and environmental/climate justice, criminal justice reform, building economic opportunity/security, promoting political representation and civic engagement and developing youth as a new generation of activists and leaders. Through these key strategies, civic engagement, voter mobilization, and activism are the mechanism to achieve these advocacy platforms and mission.

In accomplishing its mission, the NAACP's chief directive seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes; to seek enactment of federal, state and local laws securing civil rights; to inform the public about the adverse effects of racial discrimination and seek its elimination; to inform the people about their constitutional rights and take all lawful action to secure them. NAACP's organizational strategy is to educate, mobilize, and grow its membership, constituting a powerful grassroots civil rights movement, and energizing the nation through activism, civic engagement, and mobilizing voters at every level of the political process.

With units in every state, the NAACP is able to mobilize constituents at a local, state or national level. The NAACP is active nationally, divided into seven regions with a membership of nearly 400,000 individuals, 2200 adult branches, 38 state conferences, over 350 college chapters and youth councils and a 50 state voter activation network system.

The NAACP also currently has a network of digital activists totally nearly 2.2 million with a potential capacity of reaching 10 million touches or spheres of influence. The digital activist list includes 870,000 email addresses; 384,000 mobile activists; 600,000 on Facebook (with a reach well over 10 million on our highest viewed post online; 300,000+on Twitter and 49,000+ on Instagram.

Annually, the NAACP holds seven regional training institutes throughout the country where each state has individual state conferences to provide training, workshops, and activities to develop advocacy skills and capacities. Additionally, Program Directors of the NAACP core programming also provide issue related toolkits and modules to the national constituency during training conferences.

Since 1914, the NAACP maintains a Washington Bureau turning Association priorities into federal public policy through legislative processes. The NAACP also has a Hollywood Bureau which is charged with holding the entertainment industry accountable for advancing diversity. Through the work of over 2,200 units throughout the country, Hollywood and Washington Bureaus, the NAACP will continue to expand influence on national, state and local levels.

NAACP members have been advocates for full equality and freedom since 1909. Today, NAACP membership demographics represent the diversity of America: rich and poor, young and elder, black, brown, white, red and yellow, gay and straight all of whom are engaged to create a better America.

The NAACP's power lies in its membership and its ability to mobilize everyday people within the U.S. and abroad to stand up to social injustice at a moment's notice. The NAACP remains tightly connected to its past while fighting battles in courts, in Congress, and in marches and protests across the country to promote justice and equality toward the issues of today.

The NAACP's structure is organized into State/Area Conferences, Branches, Prison Branches, Young Adult Councils, College Chapters, Youth Councils, Junior Youth Councils, and High School Chapters creating an expansive footprint and capacity to mobilize constituents at a local, state or national level. With units in every state, a membership of nearly 400,000 individuals, 2200 adult branches, 38 state conferences, over 350 college chapters and youth councils, a 50 state voter activation network system and a digital activist network totaling nearly 2.2 million, affords the NAACP the capability to implement a broad range of advocacy goals and policies of national concern.

Since 1936, the NAACP has had a commitment in developing youth as future social justice leaders and advocates. The NAACP Youth and College Division has more than 25,000 young people, under the age of 25, representing 700 Youth Councils, High School Chapters and College Chapters actively involved in the fight for civil rights. The NAACP has one of the largest organized groups of young people of any secular organization in the country committed to informing youth of the problems affecting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities; as well as to advance the economic, education, social and political status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities.

The national board of directors is comprised of 64-members, with seven being youth members. The Board of Director's Advocacy and Policy Committee represents eleven standing program committees (criminal justice, economic development, education, health, housing, international affairs, labor, political action) who provide strategic input and insight to the CEO and national program directors. Program Directors provide nationwide advocacy training in healthcare, education, economic development, criminal justice, environmental justice, civic engagement/voter protection.

NAACP values are American values of tolerance, inclusion, equality, celebrating the worth of every human being. The NAACP will continue to seek justice until everyone, without regard to race, gender and gender identity, creed or religion, enjoys that equal status.

Since 1909, the NAACP has won voluminous numbers of cases in advancing the rights of American citizens. In 1915, the Association won a Supreme Court decision against the grandfather clause (used by many southern states to prevent blacks from voting), in 1917 against residential segregation ordinances and in 1927 against the all-white primary in the South.

By the 1950s, the NAACP's victory through Brown v. Board of Education, outlawed segregation in public schools (overturning the infamous 1896 Supreme Court ruling sanctioning segregation). NAACP's continuing legal campaigns against segregation, provided critical support for the modern Civil Rights movement. The NAACP retained a prominent role within the movement, co-organizing the 1963 March on Washington. The NAACP's Washington DC Bureau helped advance not only integration of armed forces in 1948 but also passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964, and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the late 1970s, the NAACP broadened its scope to securing equal rights around the world.

Today, the NAACP continues to maintain an active docket of cases addressing civil rights violations across the country. Within the last year, the NAACP played a critical role in ten major court victories for voting rights.

At a time when millennials energy, creativity and leadership engagement are pursued, for 80 years young people have learned the spirit of public service and techniques of leadership training. The NAACP has developed the strongest social media presence of any civil rights organization, with over 2.2 million followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The NAACP created the Afro-Academic Cultural Technological and Scientific Olympics Program (ACT-SO) designed to improve high academic and cultural achievement among high school students. Today, ACT-SO is recognized as one of the most successful enrichment programs in the country. ACT-SO has mentored almost 300,000 high school students who have now become business and political leaders, scientists, athletes, artists and entertainers.

Since the Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP remains at the center of major human and civil rights reform continuing to develop influential leaders, forward-thinking public policy as well as legal frameworks that help transform cultural attitudes in order to achieve long-term social justice victories.

The NAACP is committed to moving our legacy of civil rights advocacy through forceful legislation, vigorous litigation, direct action, and the creation of broad-based coalitions. The NAACP works continuously to protect and make progress in all facets of American life within all 50 states through its focus on disparities in economics, health care, education, voter empowerment, environmental and climate justice and the criminal justice system while also continuing its role as legal advocate for civil rights issues.