From the archives, Nov. 13, 1925: The Monitor tracks an NAACP legal defense fund
The paper reported the first-week total of a $50,000 NAACP drive and a Garland Fund pledge, beside news of the Sweet trial in Detroit.
Omaha Commons revisits The Monitor of Nov. 13, 1925, bringing an early chapter of the national civil rights fight to today's readers.
OMAHA — The Monitor, an Omaha weekly devoted to the interests of Black Americans, used its Nov. 13, 1925, front page to report on the first week of a national drive. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was raising a $50,000 legal defense fund "to fight segregation and other cases," the paper said.
In the week ending Nov. 6, the NAACP raised $1,927.82, leaving $28,072.18 still needed. The Garland Fund had already given $5,000 and offered $15,000 more if the association raised $30,000.
Early gifts came from Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Spingarn, New York music critic and novelist Carl Van Vechten, Mrs. Florence Kelley and the association's District of Columbia branch, which sent $464.50. One-dollar gifts arrived from places such as Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and Fairmount, Indiana. NAACP branches across the country were holding mass meetings to raise money, the paper reported.
The same front page carried the headline "Sweet Trial at Detroit Is Started With Darrow in Complete Charge." A political column on the page noted that the trial of Dr. O. S. Sweet was under way in Detroit.
Source: The Monitor (Omaha, Neb.), Nov. 13, 1925, page 1, via Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN 00225879). The Library of Congress says U.S. newspapers published more than 95 years ago are in the public domain.
How we checked this: Reported from The Monitor, Nov. 13, 1925, page 1, on the Library of Congress Chronicling America site, opened Nov. 13, 2026, at 5:09 a.m. CT, and checked against the record by our copy desk before publishing.