NAACP celebrates 100th birthday with Obama speech

The NAACP celebrated its 100th anniversary this week, as it staged its annual convention in New York. This year´s meeting was marked by emotive speeches from African American leaders like Attorney General Eric Holder and reverend Al Sharpton.  President Obama spoke of the organization´s impact on American society.
“Because of what they did, we are a more perfect union. Because Jim Crow laws were overturned, black CEOs today run Fortune 500 companies. Because civil rights laws were passed, black mayors, governors, and Members of Congress serve in places where they might once have been unable to vote. And because ordinary people made the civil rights movement their own, I made a trip to Springfield a couple years ago - where Lincoln once lived, and race riots once raged - and began the journey that has led me here tonight as the 44th President of the United States of America.”
The NAACP was founded in 1909 as a response to voting registration laws that were preventing African Americans from voting in southern states. In the mid-twentieth century, the organization fought legal battles to end discrimination in schools and to improve employment opportunities for African Americans.
Some Critics of the NAACP say that its focus on discrimination makes it an outdated organization today, in a society where discriminatory laws no longer exist.  But President Obama said that while there is less discrimination today than at any time in American history, it is still a relevant problem
“The pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.”
Obama also talked about the new challenges facing the NAACP and other organizations that seek to abolish racial inequalities.
“Prejudice and discrimination are not even the steepest barriers to opportunity today. The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation's legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still plaguing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect.”
The NAACP currently focuses on several social and economic issues, including improving African Americans access to health care and a quality education.  As the financial crisis unfolds, the NAACP has launched lawsuits against several major banks, accusing them of steering African American borrowers into costly sub-prime mortgage loans.