THE National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is five years old—old enough, it is believed, to have a history; and I, who am perhaps its first member, have been chosen as the person to recite it. As its work since 1910 has been set forth in its annual reports, I shall make it my task to show how it came into existence and to tell of its first months of work. In the summer of 1908, the country was shocked by the account of the race riots at Springfield, Illinois. Here, in the hom