Equality before the Law Matters: The Legacy of American Jews and the Founding of the NAACP and the Modern Civil Rights Movement

This chapter examines efforts by a small cadre of leading American Jews to bring to light human rights violations toward African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century. More specifically, this effort scrutinizes efforts by Jews who ushered in an era of human rights campaigning based on their moral principles, norms, and cultural practices. These same principles and practices manifested themselves in the co-founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. This profoundly important organization would lead concerted efforts to organize legal protest movements to bring about fairness in housing, employment, and education, regardless of race, color, or creed. This study will answer the following questions: What motivated leading American Jews to help co-found the NAACP and guide it become a leading advocate for African Americans in legal, political, and financial matters? Who were the Jewish leaders who came from various fields, including civil matters, education, law, and business to help create this nascent enterprise? What coalition-building took place between the Jews and African Americans over the last century leading to the birth of the civil rights movement in America in the 1950s and 1960s? What inroads or gains were made from the establishment of the NAACP and its development to bring about civil rights, and equality under the law in housing, education, employment, and banking to the forefront for blacks living in America? Ultimately, this research will underscore ways in which leading Jewish men and women who helped establish the NAACP were successful in integrating this organization with other civic organizations and working black leaders to make it a force in making the NAACP a force in achieving social justice and equality before the law.