This year sees the one hundredth anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the United States' oldest, most durable and arguably most effective African-American civil rights organisation. From its inception, it has contributed consistently to the ongoing black freedom struggle in America through its hard-fought campaigns against lynching, discriminatory housing, disfranchisement, unequal employment and, most famously, segregated public schools.

Until recently, however, the NAACP has followed a stranger career in the historiography of the civil rights movement. Scholars have paid less attention to the organisation than they have the non-violent direction action of Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference or the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's emphasis on grassroots organising.

Hosted by the Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South at the University of Sussex, the two-day "NAACP: A Centenary Appraisal" conference will explore the organisation's complex, evolving and always surprising history by bringing together leading scholars from the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. Working at the cutting-edge of civil rights historiography, these scholars will discuss and debate the NAACP's first hundred years and map out new areas for study beyond 2009.

Speakers will include: Professor David Garrow (Cambridge), Professor Manfred Berg (Heidelberg), Professor Carol Anderson (Emory), Professor Peter Ling (Nottingham), Professor Greta de Jong (Nevada-Reno), and Dr. Stephen Tuck (Oxford).

For a full list of presenters and paper titles, please see the program listing on the conference website: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cunliffe/1-7-3.html.

"The NAACP: A Centennial Appraisal Conference"
September 24-25, 2009

The White Hart Hotel, Lewes
55 High Street
Lewes
BN7 1XE

Fee: £50 (£30 postgraduate) conference day rate (accommodation not included)

Registration forms and further details about local accommodation are available on the conference website: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cunliffe/1-7-3.html