The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (
NAACP) is an
African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 by
Moorfield Storey,
Mary White Ovington and
W. E. B. Du Bois. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term
colored people.