Was the NAACP Formed by Republicans, and More Specifically Female Republicans?
I have seen several claims on Facebook pages that the NAACP was founded by Republicans, and more specifically Republican Women.
NAACP was founded by 9 people, 6 men and 3 women.
Founded Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, campaigning for equal opportunity and conducting voter mobilization.
Founding group
The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth.
But who were the people who founded the NAACP? Read on!
W. E. B. Du Bois
Socialist, Black Male.
Du Bois was a member of the Socialist party from 1910 to 1912 and always considered himself a Socialist. In 1948 he was cochairman of the Council on African Affairs; in 1949 he attended the New York, Paris, and Moscow peace congresses; in 1950 he served as chairman of the Peace Information Center and ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor party ticket in New York. In 1950-1951 Du Bois was tried and acquitted as an agent of a foreign power in one of the most ludicrous actions ever taken by the American government. Du Bois traveled widely throughout Russia and China in 1958-1959 and in 1961 joined the Communist party of the United States. He also took up residence in Ghana, Africa, in 1961. [1]
Denounced republicans and urged blacks to withdraw their support from the Republican party. [2]
Ida B. Wells
Black Woman, Republican
Ida B. Wells’s parents were active in the Republican Party during Reconstruction. Her father, James, was involved with the Freedman’s Aid Society and helped start Shaw University, a school for the newly freed slaves (now Rust College) and served on the first board of trustees. It was there that Ida B. Wells received her early schooling, but she had to drop out at the age of 16, when tragedy struck her family. Both of her parents and one of her siblings died in a yellow fever outbreak, leaving Wells to care for her other siblings. Ever resourceful, she convinced a nearby country school administrator that she was 18, and landed a job as a teacher. [3]
Archibald Grimké
Black Male, Democrat, former Republican.
Grimke had begun to feel that the Republicans were no longer concerned about rights for African-Americans, and in 1886 he left the party. His mentor Codman had become a Democrat by this time. Grimke supported a Democratic candidate who ultimately lost the gubernatorial race. Although he chose to remain an Independent, he worked for Democratic candidates in 1887 and 1888. He received the Democratic party’s nomination for state representative in 1888, but lost by several hundred votes. With Codman’s support, Grimke was nominated to be consul to the Dominican Republic in 1889, but the nomination by an outgoing president died in the Senate. Archie stayed involved in politics over the next few years, speaking out on issues that affected African-Americans and working for the Democratic party. [4]
Henry Moskowitz
White Male, Progressive Party
Oscar S. Straus, Progressive candidate for Governor, selected a campaign manager yesterday. His choice fell on Dr. Henry Moskowitz, scholar and settlement worker, with much practical experience in civic movements but little knowledge of politics. Dr. Moskowitz is President of the Downtown Ethical Culture Society. [5][6]
Mary White Ovington
White Woman, Socialist
Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Ovington joined the Socialist Party in 1905, where she met people such as Daniel De Leon, Asa Philip Randolph, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman and Jack London, who argued that racial problems were as much a matter of class as of race. She wrote for radical journals and newspapers such as, The Masses, New York Evening Post, and The Call. She also worked with Ray Stannard Baker and influenced the content of his book, Following the Color Line (1908). [7]
Oswald Garrison Villard
White Male, Conservative Democrat
In 1912 Villard supported Woodrow Wilson in his campaign for the Presidency. At that time Villard was chairman of the board of directors of the NAACP, and the task of convincing its Negro members that a candidate of southern birth would concern himself with the protection of Negro rights was a formidable one. [8]
Villard was also a founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League which favored independence for the territories captured in the Spanish-American War. To further the cause, he worked to organize “a third ticket” in 1900 to challenge William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley. His was joined in this effort by several key veterans of the National Democratic Party in 1896.Not surprisingly, Villard made a personal appeal to Grover Cleveland, a hero of the gold Democrats, to be the candidate.Cleveland demurred asserting that voters no longer cared what he had to say. [9]
William English Walling
White Male, Socialist Republican, later left the party [10]
He was a founder of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, the Women’s Trade Union League, the Social Democratic League, and the NAACP. [11]
Florence Kelley
White Woman, Socialist
Kelley was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian family with a strong commitment to abolitionist and women’s rights activism. After reading through her father’s library and graduating from Cornell, Kelley studied law and government at the University of Zurich, joined the German Social Democratic party [12]
Charles Edward Russell
White Male, Socialist Party
The Uprising of the Many (1907) and Lawless Wealth (1908) summed up some of the reasons why he joined the Socialist party. His writings earned him a national reputation. He campaigned for governor, mayor, and U.S. senator in New York State. In 1916 he declined the Socialist party’s presidential nomination. [13]
References:
[1] http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-w.e.b.-dubois
[2] http://www.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/Niagara%20Movement/niagaramain.htm
[3] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_wells.html
[4] https://www.usca.edu/aasc/grimke.htm
[5] http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05E5D9113AE633A25752C1A96F9C946396D6CF
[6] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0014_0_14295.html
[7] http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-Mary-White-Ovington
[8] http://archive.org/stream/oswaldgarrisonvi00hume/oswaldgarrisonvi00hume_djvu.txt
[9] http://www.reference.com/browse/oswald+garrison+villard
[10] http://www.charlottenaacp.com/Founders-of-the-NAACP.html
[11] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/founding-and-early-years.html
[12] http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/kelley.html
[13] http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Charles_Edward_Russell.aspx
Sponsored Reading:
 See larger image Lift Every Voice: The Naacp and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement
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