February 12, 1909: The NAACP -- the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -- is founded in New York City. The date was not chosen at random: It was the 100th Anniversary of the birth of the Great Emancipator, President Abraham Lincoln.
The NAACP grew out of the Niagara Movement, founded in 1905, but struggling for funding, as its membership was nearly all black, and absolutely all male. The former status was financially problematic, while the latter was morally untenable. Among the founders of the new group were academic W.E.B. Du Bois and journalist Ida B. Wells.
Through the 1940s, the NAACP would focus on anti-lynching efforts, to the point where lynchings became a rarity. In the 1950s, they shifted to desegregation. It was as their general counsel that Thurgood Marshall, later to become the 1st black Justice on the Supreme Court, got "separate but equal" struck down by that Court in 1954. The NAACP were also major backers of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56, and of the March On Washington in 1963.
The group is still active today, headquartered in Baltimore -- Marshall's hometown, although that is largely a coincidence -- and, as recently as 2017, issued a travel warning for black people thinking of visiting Missouri, due to racist violence there. (UPDATE: In 2023, they did so for Florida as well.)
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February 12, 1909 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. And professional basketball and hockey barely existed. So there were no scores on this historic day.
