Our History
The Brooklyn Branch of the NAACP was chartered in 1922. It was a year of turmoil and pervasive lynching of African-American men. The first meeting of the Branch, held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1920, was an anti-lynching meeting. Attending that meeting was Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer of Missouri, who introduced the Anti-Lynching Bill in Congress. Also present was Senator Joseph Frank of Maryland, an unwavering anti-lynching campaigner.
Over the years, the Brooklyn Branch has gained a reputation as one of the largest, most effective and influential branches of the NAACP. At its peak, the branch had a membership of some 10,000.
Since its reorganization in June 2005, the Brooklyn Branch has emerged with a young and committed leadership determined to build on the branch’s rich legacy of activism and defending the social, economic, political and legal rights of people of color.
Our Mission
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.
The following statement of objectives is found on the first page of the NAACP Constitution – the principal objectives of the Association shall be:
To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens
To achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States
To remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes
To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights
To inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its elimination
To educate persons as to their constitutional rights and to take all lawful action to secure the exercise thereof, and to take any other lawful action in furtherance of these objectives, consistent with the NAACP’s Articles of Incorporation and this Constitution.