BRIEF HISTORY OF NAACP & PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY

 After the Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois, the need for an effective civil rights organization in the United States became imperative.  A group of mainly white civil rights advocates convened in New York City to form a civil rights organization. Some of the founders were Mary White Ovington, William English Walling, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimke, and Osward Garrison Villard, Henry Moscowitz, and Florence Kelley.  They chose the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln as the founding date, February 12, 1909.  The actual name was chosen by the Niagara Movement at its meeting in 1910; the Niagara Movement was organized by Dr. W. E. B. DuBois in 1906 and had as one of its main purposes to secure anti-lynching laws and promote equality of rights and eradicate race prejudice and complete equality before the law.  The two groups became one and the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People was incorporated in 19ll.  In the 1900's and 1920's NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation and to enact anti-lynching laws.  Through the use of the courts, rallies, protests, marches, NAACP fought against racial prejudice and segregation, for equity of opportunity in education, employment, housing, full suffrage, and equal protection under the law. 

When Hester V. King founded the Prince George’s County Branch of NAACP in 1935, the county population was approximately 60, 000 with about 10% of them descendents of former slaves.  By 1960 the population had grown to 350,000 and 661,000 by 1970.  Hester V. King lived in a rural, semi-agrarian economy with the black population on small farms which grew tobacco and other crops for feeding their families and neighbors.  It was deeply segregated racially with “Colored Schools” for the former slaves and freedmen, mainly one room or two room schoolhouses with a pot belly stove and no running water.  Rosenwald schools were built around the county and black farmers paid for and provided housing for the teachers in the “Colored Schools”.  Hand me down textbooks came from the white schools with desks and chairs.  Black people were segregated in specific areas and neighborhoods mainly in the northern end of the county and the far southern end of the county.  Many voted but none held any elected office.   

The main Courthouse on Main Street housed all of the courts, the County Commissioners (all white men), and all county agencies with signs on the restrooms and water fountains marked “Colored Only” and Whites Only”.  Black people were not welcomed in the Courthouse; they entered the movie theatre by the back door and sat in the balcony, never went to the hotel, and were discouraged from using the pharmacy on Main Street.  Black people attended church and were confined to the back pews or the balcony.  There were no restaurants for black people, except some cement block structures in their segregated communities in both the northern and the southern ends of the county or the pool hall near the jail in Upper Marlboro.  Hester V. King was persistent in pursuing elimination of racially discriminatory signs in the Courthouse and all public places which brought the KKK to put a cross in front of her home.

The 1970’s brought the desegregation suit against the dual school system in the county, Vaughns v. Board of Education for Prince George’s County with the lead Plaintiff was the sixth President of NAACP, Sylvester Vaughns.  Jesse Warr, Cora Rice, and many others worked hard to bring this lawsuit to court.  The Honorable Frank Kaufman of the United States District Court for the State of Maryland issued his decision in 1972 ordering mandatory school assignment, i.e., ”busing” in order to integrate the two separate school systems into one, “Colored Schools” and “White Schools” effective January 1973. 

During this growth period from the 1970’s through the 1990’s, NAACP was deeply involved with every civil rights issue in the county, especially issues involving racial discrimination, elimination of the dual school system and educational funding, racial segregation in the hospitals, establishment of the Human Relations Commission for the county to deal with discrimination in all areas, voter registration and election of African Americans to the school board, county council, state elected offices and a Congressional seat.  NAACP pushed for more African Americans in the judiciary, District Courts and the Circuit Courts as well as other offices in the Courthouse.  NAACP's fight for civil rights has always included fighting for the civil rights of Native Americans and immigrants by opposing immigration restrictions.  NAACP was always in the forefront pushing for equal opportunity and justice.