The Beinecke has recently acquired an archive of publications, ephemera, and other materials related to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The forty-two items total nearly 700 pages, spanning more than sixty years, beginning in 1915, with much documentation of the NAACP’s early efforts to end lynching in the United States, including “The Waco Horror” by Elizabeth Freeman, “Brief in Support of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill” by Moorefield Storey, a 1930’s “Stop Lynching NAACP Legal Defense Fund” pin-back button, etc. Also included are two ephemeral items, representing Anti-NAACP racist publications in the United States. The large majority of publications in the collection are unrecorded by OCLC (or otherwise known in only a few institutional holdings). A detailed list of the collection contents is available here (NOTE: this document includes images and language that some my find disturbing): NAACP Collection Description.  Related collections include: Walter White and Poppy Cannon Papers (JWJ MSS 38); James Weldon Johnson and Grace Nail Johnson Papers (JWJ MSS 49); Joel Spingarn Collection (JWJ MSS 11); JWJ Clippings Collection (JWJ MSS 89); Leon F. Litwack Collection Protest Literature (WA MSS S-2616); additional materials may be found by searching the Finding Aid Database, Uncataloged Accession Database, Digital Library, and Orbis.

Image: [Pictorial Broadside, urging membership in the NAACP]: STRONG MAN! [Caption title]. Published by the Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburg, Penn. Hollywood, California: Distributed by Hollywood Beauty Secrets Company, Owned by Mr. & Mrs. Homer Goodwin [No Date, but circa 1950’s?]. Original promotional broadside, issued by a cosmetics company.