The Civil Rights Century:
The NAACP at 100

The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland
February 6-7, 2009

It's been one hundred years since an interracial group of activists met in New York City to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in February 1909. For a nation that is less than 250 years old, the centennial of the NAACP is a major milestone. Using the NAACP as a lens, how much has changed in American race relations over the past 100 years? How far do we have to go? "The Civil Rights Century: The NAACP at 100" is a public history conference that commemorates the NAACP's long history and encourages dialogue on the nation's racial past, present, and future.

Schedule of Events

Friday, February 6, 2009

Johns Hopkins University, Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218

7 p.m.: Keynote Address by Hon. Kweisi Mfume
Shriver Auditorium
Free of charge and open to the public

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Charles Commons Conference Center, 3301 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218
All events free of charge and open to the public

8:30 a.m.: Registration opens

9 a.m.-5 p.m.: Oral History Recording Booth open

Morning Session: 9-10:45 a.m.

Panel 1: The Civil Rights Century: Considering 100 Years of the NAACP
Kevern Verney, “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: A Historiographical Perspective, 1909-2009”
Daniel Kato, “Bifurcating Racism: How the Supreme Court 'Segregated' Lynchings”

Panel 2: All Politics Is Local: NAACP Branches and the Struggle for Equality
Moderator: James Calvin, Johns Hopkins University
Brent Campney, “'No More Colored Men Will Ever Be Hung': Black Jailhouse Defenses in Kansas, 1890-1910”
Melissa Stuckey, “From civil rights to Civil Rights: Boley, Oklahoma, the Grandfather Clause, and the NAACP”
Orion A. Teal, “Taking Custody of the Movement: Civil Rights, Anticommunism, and the Battle over the Ingram Boys”

Panel 3: Women's Leadership, Women's Rights
Moderator: Katrina Bell McDonald, Johns Hopkins University
Rachel Devlin, “Girls on the Front Line: Gender and the Battle to Desegregate the Public Schools”
Jeanne Theoharis, “'I had been working for a long time': Rethinking Rosa Parks and the Mythology of the Civil Rights Movement”
Caroline Emmons, “Ruby Hurley's Long Civil Rights Movement”

11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Keynote Address by Dr. David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of W.E.B. Du Bois

12:30-1:30 p.m.: Book signing by David Levering Lewis at Barnes and Noble Johns Hopkins

12-1:30 p.m.: Lunch Break

Afternoon Session: 1:45-3:30 p.m.

Panel 4: Beyond the Image: Seeking Fair Representations of Race
Moderator: Deb Weiner, Jewish Museum of Maryland
Thomas Cripps, “Movies, Race, and World War II: The NAACP in Hollywood”
Barbara McCaskill and Christina L. Davis, “Parade of Progress in the Jim Crow South: The Civil Rights Work of Atlanta Photographer J. Richardson Jones”
George Lewis, “With No Deliberate Speed: The NAACP's Battle with the Putnam Letters”

Panel 5: A Shared Struggle: The NAACP and Global Civil Rights Movements
Barbara Driscoll de Alvarado, Annette Rodriguez, and Carmen Samora, “Los Tres Grandes: Ernesto Galarza, Herman Gallegos, Julian Samora and the Founding of the National Council of La Raza”
Angela Ciccolo, “The HIV/AIDS Crisis: An Opportunity to Advance Health through Civil Rights Advocacy”
Nico Slate, “Defining 'Colored People': The NAACP and India, 1909-1955”

Panel 6: Speaking Truth to Power: The NAACP and Systemic Inequality
Dennis Doster, “'Thank God Segregation Is Dead': The Baltimore NAACP and the Role of the African American Lawyer in the Fight Against Residential Segregation, 1910-1917”
Argin Hutchins, “The Contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois to the Advancement of Epidemiological Criminology and the Prevention of African-American Juvenile Violence”
Michael Sistrom, “From Voting Rights to Black Power: The NAACP, the MFDP, and the Development of Black Politics in Mississippi, 1965-1969”

3:45-5 p.m.: Closing Discussion: The Future of the NAACP
Moderator: April Yvonne Garrett, President, Civic Frame

EVENT SPONSORS:
JHU Center for Africana Studies
Maryland Humanities Council (http://www.mdhc.org/)
Jewish Museum of Maryland (http://www.jewishmuseummd.org)
JHU Center for Social Concern (http://csc.jhu.edu/)
JHU Office of Institutional Equity (http://www.jhuaa.org/)
JHU Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (http://web.jhu.edu/studentprograms/multicultural/)

EVENT PARTNERS
ACLU of Maryland (www.aclu-md.org)
Equality Maryland (http://www.equalitymaryland.org/)
Maryland Black Family Alliance (http://www.marylandbfa.org/)

This project was made possible by a grant from the Maryland Humanities Council, through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the (publication, website, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Maryland Humanities Council.