The St. Paul Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began on July 15, 1905 in Buffalo, New York, when Representative from fourteen states met to discuss methods for improving the conditions for Negroes in America. Among the group leaders was Frederick L. McGhee of St. Paul.

McGhee was a young Black man born in Mississippi, who received his college training at Knoxville College, in Tennessee and moved to Illinois to study law. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1884 and five years later, migrated to Minnesota to become the first Negro, in Minnesota history, to be admitted to practice before the State Supreme Court.

W.E.B DuBois came to St. Paul to personally invite McGhee to attend the second annual meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harper's Ferry to help them draw up a platform. After meeting, the members agreed that the movement should protect the rights of freedom of speech and criticism, the right of a free press, full manhood suffrage and fight for the abolition of all class distinctions based on color.

After returning to the Twin Cities, McGhee helped to organize the Twin City Protection League which eventually became the Twin City branch of the NAACP on March 25, 1912. The founders of the Twin Cities Branch were Reverend A.H. Lealtad, president, Dr. Robert S. Brown, vice president, John Q. Adams, secretary and Z.A.Pope, treasurer. The board of governors was made up of Jose Sherwood, Frederick L. McGhee and B.S. Smith. Other members were Dr. Valdo Turner, J.H. Loomis, G.W. James, S.C. Phillips and O.C. Hall.

On October 6, 1913, seventeen members of the Twin Cities branch met at St. Phillips Episcopal Church to form a new St. Paul Branch. Under the steady leadership of Father Lealtad and the activism of Dr. Turner, the branch grew and in 1914 they sent Father Stephen L. Theobald, to the na¬tional conference in Baltimore as their delegate.

By the end of the year, the branch's membership had increased to over one hundred and Lieu¬tenant Governor J.A.A. Burnquist was installed as the organization's second president. That same year, Dr. Turner led a group to City Hall to protest the downtown showing of the movie, "The Nigger".  After some discussion and negotiations with Mayor Powers and the city council, the group succeeded in getting the title changed to, "The New Governor," and Mrs. Thomas H. Lyles was invited to preview it before it was again shown to the public.

At the beginning of the next decade, the branch moved its offices to 303 Court Block near what is now the Union Depot. Dr. Valdo Turner again led a committee before the Commissioner of Public Parks and Playgrounds, J.M. Clancy, to protest his designation of the Welcome Hall Playground, on Western and Rondo Streets as "exclusively for colored people". Two years later, branch secretary, Roy Wilkins organized the fund-raiser that was needed to start the St. Paul Urban League.

In 1922, Dr. Turner brought charges against the St. Paul Police Department for their brutal treatment of packinghouse workers Frank Hardy and Nick Beavens. The following year, Mr. Wilkins, who had been serving as the Managing Editor of the Appeal, left St. Paul to accept a position at the Kansas City Hall.

In 1925, Judge John W. Willis assumed the office of branch president and introduced NAACP Secretary Walter White when he spoke at Pilgrim Baptist Church on Summit and Cedar Streets.

The following year, Pierce Butler Jr., the son of the Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was elected president of the St. Paul branch. He gave much needed support to branch member Blanche S. Brookins who was suing the Pullman Company for, "Insult, mortication and injury to her nervous system after being ejected from a Pullman car in Palatka, Florida on July 1, 1926". The National NAACP office praised her suit as having, "Presaged a new era in legal and judicial contention concerning the interpretation of laws governing interstate travel and the intent and meaning of passenger accommodations".

At the beginning of the 1930's, the St. Paul branch was re-organized under the leadership of Mrs. Josie Williams, with the assistance of Ted Allen and Mrs. Clarence Mitchell Jr. who helped to build up the membership. During that decade, a legal redress committee, headed by John Culver, demanded a grand jury investigation into the death of Thomas Johnson, a man who was murdered by two white thugs, Edward Schmidt and Ernest Lukes, at 7th and Wacouta Street. The branch succeeded in getting S. E. Hall selected as a member of the grand jury.

In the 1940's, Maceo Little John persuaded Commissioner Fred Truax to end discrimination at the city roller rink on Harriet Island. On January 24, 1947, Arthur Sternberg, Dean M.A. Morril of Hamline University and Reverend T. R. Nelson, staged a sit-in from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the lobby of the Hamline Hotel before the management finally allowed Bayard Rustin to register.

In the 1950's, Carl L. Wescheke became the first fully paid life member of the St. Paul branch after leading the first drive for a fair housing ordinance that was passed by the City Council. Near the end of the decade, the branch enjoyed the dynamic organizational leadership of Leonard Carter, who persuaded the State Fair Employment Practice Commission to rescind their practice of requiring applicants for employment to submit a photograph prior to their being called for job interviews.

Pilgrim Baptist Church became the first St. Paul institution in the 1960's to complete its payment on its life membership. In April, President Addie C. Few announced that picketing of Woolworth and Grant stores would begin during the first week of the month. The seven members of the James O. Mann family became the first paid-up family in the branch's Family Club; in the summer of 1960 President Donald Lewis brought St. Paul a national NAACP convention. In 1969, the Spingarn Medal was awarded to Clarence Mitchell Jr., who three decades earlier had almost single-handedly ended race discrimination in the auto-risk insurance field in Minnesota.

In any assessment of the branch's history, credit must be given to Kenneth Grisvold, who was the branch's main legal advocate from 1955-75. The strength and forthrightness of Reverend Denzil Carty was a powerful voice in the 1970's. Rev. Carty was responsible for expanding the work of the NAACP in the state, by organizing branches in Duluth and Rochester, as well as Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Over the years, the NAACP St. Paul branch has been blessed with strong, creative and dedicated leadership that has continued to crusade, to safeguard and to be vigilant in the case of civil and human rights.