Final answer:
The NAACP was founded by W.E.B. Du Bois and other significant African-American figures in 1909, with the aim to combat restrictive and discriminatory practices. Booker T. Washington, known for his incremental approach to black advancement, was not a founder of the NAACP. Du Bois's drive for immediate equality significantly influenced the direction of the NAACP in fighting for African-American rights.
Step-by-step explanation:
The founder of the NAACP was not Booker T. Washington or Marcus Garvey, but rather W.E.B. Du Bois, among other prominent African-Americans. Du Bois was an African-American historian and sociologist who earned the first doctorate awarded to an African-American by Harvard University. He actively championed equal rights for African-Americans and was a significant figure in founding the NAACP in 1909, which was an organization committed to fighting for the rights of African-Americans against punitive laws and restrictive ordinances.
Booker T. Washington, another influential African-American leader of the time, focused on advancing the African-American community through education and entrepreneurship and founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. However, Washington's approach of incremental progress through self-improvement and vocational education, known as the Atlanta Compromise, was criticized by Du Bois, who felt that it did not sufficiently resist segregation and discriminatory practices.
In contrast, Du Bois sought immediate and unequivocal progress towards racial equality, seeing no justification for accommodating segregation, even temporarily, and his efforts were instrumental in setting up the NAACP as a force for change in the pursuit of social justice for African-Americans.