The Center
for Africana Studies at The Johns Hopkins University
will be marking the 100th
anniversary of the founding of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People with a public history
conference being held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6 and 7, on
the Homewood campus.
(See "Special Events" in this
issue's Calendar.)
The Civil Rights Century: The NAACP at 100,
which will take place just a few days prior to the
organization's official centennial on Feb. 12, seeks to
complement the NAACP's centennial celebration
by focusing on history with presentations by scholars and
activists noting that the civil rights struggle
predated the 1960s by decades. From prominent achievements
like the 1954 Brown v. Board of
Education decision to lesser-known battles like the
protests against the controversial 1915 film Birth
of a Nation, the NAACP's stewardship of the fight for
racial equality will be in the spotlight.
"This is a historic moment for the NAACP," said Ben
Vinson, director of the Center for Africana
Studies and a professor of Latin American history. "Given
the landmark political changes generated by
the recent presidential election, and continuing shifts in
the discussion surrounding race in America,
this conference will help us look forward to the NAACP's
future while reflecting back on its landmark
accomplishments as one of America's premier civil rights
institutions. By featuring cutting-edge
research on the NAACP's history," he said, "this conference
will offer a fresh look at a familiar
organization in ways that will undoubtedly inform and
engage our community. We are thrilled to host
this event."
The conference will open on Friday with a reception
and keynote address by Kweisi Mfume,
president and CEO of the NAACP from 1996 to 2004 and, prior
to that, a member of the U.S. House
of Representatives for a decade.
Pulitzer Prize-winning W.E.B. Du Bois biographer David
Levering Lewis will kick off the second
day of events, which will include panel discussions about
the NAACP's impact on civil rights, politics
and women's rights, and depictions of race in the media.
Panelists are Angela Ciccolo, interim general
counsel and secretary of the NAACP, and professors and
graduate students from the universities of
Virginia and Georgia, and Harvard, Duke, Tulane and Indiana
universities.
There will also be an opportunity for attendees to
record their own oral histories about the civil
rights struggle in Baltimore and around the country.
The Civil Rights Century: The NAACP at 100 is
sponsored by Johns Hopkins' Center for Africana
Studies, Center for
Social Concern, Office
of Institutional Equity and
Office of Multicultural Affairs;
with the Maryland Humanities Council and the Jewish Museum
of Maryland; and in partnership with
the ACLU of Maryland, Equality Maryland and the Maryland
Black Family Alliance.
The project was made possible by a grant from the
Maryland Humanities Council, through
support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
For more information about the conference, which is
free, go to
www.jhu.edu/africana or e-mail
naacp100@jhu.edu.