The Chicago NAACP and the Rise of Black Professional Leadership, 1910–1966

The Chicago NAACP was one of the first branches created in an effort to attain first-class citizenship for African Americans. Through the first six decades of white resistance, black indifference, and internal group struggle, the branch endured the effects of two world wars, national depression, the Cold War, and growing class differentiation among blacks. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Jane Addams, Dr. Charles E. Bentley, and Earl B. Dickerson were some early reformers who influenced the development of the Chicago NAACP during these earliest days.