NAACP @ 100 #2

On July 4, 1918, one hundred years ago this summer, the first Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was organized in the state capital of Little Rock. A year later, one of the national NAACP’s earliest legal victories was achieved in the state. After the Elaine massacre in 1919, when possibly hundreds of black men, women and children were gunned down by a white mob when black sharecroppers sought to unionize, twelve black men were handed the death sentence for their alleged role in events. The NAACP assisted in their defense and in the case of Moore v. Dempsey the U.S. Supreme Court overruled their sentences on the grounds of improper influence by a hostile courtroom.