WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12: NAACP

Profile America — Tuesday, February 12th.  One of the nation's major civil rights organizations is 104 years old today — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded to combat lynching, and segregation, the NAACP continues to work towards greater opportunities for minorities.  One of its most telling moments came with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, which desegregated the nation's schools. The lawyer who argued that case, Thurgood Marshall, became the first African-American Supreme Court justice.  When the NAACP was founded, there were 9.8 million African-Americans in the U.S.  Today, that number, including mixed-race blacks, is nearly 42 million.  You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.

Sources:  www.naacp.org
Historical Statistics of the United States:  Colonial Time to 1970, p. 17
U.S. Census Bureau, Facts for Features, CB12-FF.01

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau