Civil rights is now in cyberspace.
The NAACP went on the Internet on Tuesday, opening a home page on the World Wide Web, the graphics portion of the global computer network."Millions and millions and millions of people around the world will have access to us in a different way," said NAACP President Kweisi Mfume.
The Internet site is part of a push by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to capitalize on technological advances.
Just this month, for example, the NAACP switched to its first computerized system for processing memberships, Mfume said.
The Web site, unveiled during the group's 87th annual convention here, will ease communications between the NAACP's 2,200 branches and the national office in Baltimore.
It also links the NAACP with some 24 million global users of the Internet, said Raymond Smith, chairman of Bell Atlantic, which offered technical assistance in establishing the site.
Visitors can scroll through news releases, Mfume's radio speeches, NAACP programs and the organization's history. They can tap into updates on current topics, such as the church burnings, or buy memberships online.
Members said the Web site was long overdue.
"The (Ku Klux) Klan has a Web page," said Tony Alexander, president of the San Jose, Calif., branch of the NAACP. "We have positive things that need to go on too."
The address for the NAACP site is (http://www.naacp.org) on the World Wide Web.