NAACP @ 100 #4

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. The NAACP has always been an important incubator for black leadership and advancement in the state. In 1961, Pine Bluff attorney George Howard succeeded Daisy Bates as NAACP state president. Howard went on to blaze a legal trail as the first black person appointed to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, the Arkansas Supreme Court, and as a judge in an Arkansas federal court. In 1965, North Little Rock dentist Dr. Jerry Jewell succeeded Howard as NAACP state president. In 1972, Jewell became of one the first black people elected to the Arkansas General Assembly in eighty years.