Defining the Struggle National Racial Justice Organizing, 1880-1915

• Uncovers overlooked early history of the law-related aspects of national civil rights organizing
• Disproves standard assumptions that significant national civil rights organizing started in the 1930s
• Dates the commencement of the dual strategy of civil rights test case litigation coupled with national organization building to the 1880s, rather than the 1930s as commonly assumed
• Shows that early civil rights activists were pursuing a racial justice strategy that blended political and civil rights equality with social welfare and economic fairness concerns

Since its founding in 1910—the same year as another national organization devoted to the economic and social welfare aspects of race advancement, the National Urban League—the NAACP has been viewed as the vanguard national civil rights organization in American history. But these two flagship institutions were not the first important national organizations devoted to advancing the cause of racial justice. Instead, it was even earlier groups — including the National Afro American League, the National Afro American Council, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Niagara Movement - that developed and transmitted to the NAACP and National Urban League foundational ideas about law and lawyering that these latter organizations would then pursue. 

With unparalleled scholarly depth, Defining the Struggle explores these forerunner organizations whose contributions in shaping early twentieth century national civil rights organizing have largely been forgotten today. It examines the motivations of their leaders, the initiatives they undertook, and the ideas about law and racial justice activism they developed and passed on to future generations. In so doing, it sheds new light on how these early origins helped set the path for twentieth century legal civil rights activism in the United States.

Readership: Students and scholars of law, African-American studies, social movements; general readers interested in civil rights history