Alice Moore Dunbar
The NAACP, founded in 1909, is the nation’s oldest and largest Civil Rights Organization. The thousands of dedicated NAACP workers, volunteers, leaders and members, who make up the NAACP, continue to fight for justice.
The Wilmington, De Branch was chartered in 1915, an effort started by Alice Moore Dunbar, a local Howard High School Teacher, who was the former wife of the renowned Author and Poet, Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Mrs. Dunbar was an exceptional Author in her own right.
Mrs. Dunbar received word that the racist and pro-klan movie, “Birth of a Nation” was about to be shown at a local movie theater. She called friends, neighbors, teachers and others and went to the Wilmington City Council to protest the showing. It was not only banned in Wilmington, based on the fear of race riots, but in hundreds of other cities across the nation.
She then sat and penned a letter to W.E.B. DUBois, a signer of the original charter of the National NAACP and who at the time served as the Organization’s Executive Secretary. In the letter, Ms Dunbar stated that she and others were raising funds to start a local chapter of the NAACP.
Another example of one person making a difference and steering the course of history.
The original signers of the Wilmington Branch charter were Alice Moore Dunbar, Teacher, Rev. B.T. Moore, Pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, Edwina B. Kruse, School Principal, George J. Sykes, Dentist, Alice Baldwin, Teacher, W.H. Hoxter, Minister, E.W. America, Hairdresser, M.J. Woodlen, Homemaker, and L.A. Redding, Letter Carrier and the father of the local lawyer and legend, Louis L. Redding, who worked with Thurgood Marshall on the Brown VS Board of Education (1954).