Tri-Cities NAACP, which serves the cities of Cedar Hill, DeSoto, and Duncanville, was reinstated during the February 2015 National Board meeting after a five-year hiatus. Rev. Carmelita Pope-Freeman was named president of the newly reactivated unit. And in 2018, Janis Dunn was elected president. President Dunn’s mission is to lead Tri-Cities into a viable, well-respected Civil Rights organization. We will serve the needs and provide resources for the citizens in our service area. Monthly meetings are held every 3rd Thursday at the DeSoto Public Library located on 211 E. Pleasant Run Road in DeSoto, TX 75115.

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Vision Statement

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The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.

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Mission Statement

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The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.

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Founding of the NAACP

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The NAACP was established in February 1909 in New York City by an interracial group of activists, partially in response to the 1908 Springfield race riot in Illinois. Such eruptions of anti-black violence – particularly lynching – were horrifically commonplace, but the Springfield riot was the final tipping point.

 

In that event, two black men being held in a Springfield jail for alleged crimes against white people were surreptitiously transferred to a jail in another city, spurring a white mob to burn down 40 homes in Springfield’s black residential district, ransack local businesses and murder two African Americans.

 

The NAACP’s founding members included white progressives Mary White Ovington, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling and Oswald Garrison Villard, along with African Americans as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Archibald Grimke and Mary Church Terrell.

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