The Spingarn Medal is a gold medal awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for the highest achievement of a living African American in the preceding year or years. It was established in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn, a white writer, literary critic, educator, and civil rights activist who served as chairman of the Board of Directors (1913–19), treasurer (1919–30), and president (1930–39) of the NAACP. The award was intended to draw attention to African American achievement and inspire young African Americans.
The Spingarn Medal is administered by the NAACP, with Howard and Fisk universities designated as alternates should the NAACP ever become defunct. The medal is valued at $100, and Spingarn left $20,000 in his will for the NAACP to continue giving it indefinitely. The first NAACP committee to award the medal included prominent leaders such as John Hope, the president of Morehouse College; John Hurst, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; and U.S. President William Howard Taft. The committee that year selected Ernest Everett Just, a former professor and head of physiology at Howard University Medical School, as the first recipient of the Spingarn Medal.
The Spingarn Medal has been awarded to many notable African Americans in various fields, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, A. Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Hank Aaron, Bill Cosby, Maya Angelou, Ruby Dee, and Harry Belafonte. The medal is a positive recognition of the achievements of African Americans and serves as an inspiration for future generations.
There is no information available on the product details, positive, negative, ingredients, or materials of the Spingarn Medal, as it is an award and not a physical product.
