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In the summer of 1908 race riots erupted in Springfield, Illinois. For two days fighting raged in the streets and when calm was finally restored scores of black men and women lay killed or wounded. Thousands were driven from their homes in the city.
The nation was appalled. In the home of Abraham Lincoln, many of its leading citizens had congealed into a mob, unleashing its fury on their black neighbors. The race riots in Springfield revived the half-century old abolitionist spirit in many American whites.
In early 1909 a distinguished group of 53 liberal whites and 7 blacks met in a small New York City apartment to issue "The Call" to renew "the struggle for civil and political liberty." On February 12, the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the group calling themselves the National Negro Committee pledged to insure the rights gained in the 14th and 15th Amendments (equal protection under the law and universal adult male suffrage) to the United States Constitution.
The main guiding spirit at this conference which would evolve into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was W.E.B. DuBois, whose militant Niagara Movement had been advocating black rights since 1905. DuBois was appointed Director of Publications, the only African American executive on the board.
The NAACP began its fight for justice in the courts. The first battle in which the organization engaged was the Pink Franklin case, involving a black farm hand who killed a police officer who had broken into his home at 3 a.m. in the morning to arrest him on a civil charge. Franklin's plea of self-defense was disavowed and he eventually took his case to the Supreme Court before losing.
An early success was a victory in Guinn v. United States which brought down a discriminatory Oklahoma law that restricted equal access to the voting booth via an arcane grandfather clause. These cases attracted the talents of Joel Springarn and Arthur Springarn, brothers who helped establish the NAACP as an important legal advocate for the rights of minorities.
In 1915 the NAACP initiated the Springarn Medal to be awarded annually for outstanding achievement by a black American. The first award was won by Dr. Ernest Everett Just, a 32-year old marine biologist from Charleston, South Carolina. Head of the Howard University Department of the Zoology at the time, Dr. Just was the only person to graduate magna cum laude from Dartmouth college with a degree in zoology, special honors in botany and history, and honors in sociology.
Over the years the Springarn Medal has come to signify the highest honor available from the NAACP. Although the significance of the organization declined with the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the Springarn Medal remains a coveted award. Past winners include statesmen (Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King), musicians (Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington), authors (Maya Angelou, Alex Haley), politicians (Barbara Jordan, Andrew Young), civil rights leaders (Medger Evans, Rosa Parks), athletes (Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron), and entertainers (Paul Robeson, Bill Cosby).
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