About us

The NAACP Providence works to insure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of minority groups.

Youth Council

Youth and young adult organized agendas and events, driven by a spirit of service, activism, change and impact.

Vision

Developing a New Generation of Civil Rights and Community Leaders within the Greater Providence, RI community!

Our History

With a population of 224,326, Providence was, in 1910, the 21st largest city in the United States. Immigration from Europe, Canada, and the southern states had helped swell the population by nearly 50,000 from the 1900 Census. The city’s citizens were cramped in mostly wooden housings amid numerous jewelry, cotton and woolen mills on 17.7 square miles of land at the head of Narragansett Bay. Negroes were referred to more commonly as “Coloreds” and less commonly as “Blacks,” counted as 5,247 of the city’s total population.

Due primarily to under-counting and the movement of people, it is estimated that the actual number of Negroes living in Providence at that time may have been closer to 6,000, less than 3% of the city’s total population. Two-thirds of that number indicated they were born in Rhode Island while the remaining third had migrated to Providence from the Southern states, primarily Maryland and Virginia, with many claiming they moved to escape segregation and “Jim Crow” laws in the South.