This Friday marks the 101st year since the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, better known as the NAACP.

To recognize the event, the Star Of Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church will host a program in honor of Founders' Day.

Rep. Kelly Alexander, Jr. of Mecklenburg County will be the keynote speaker. The church is located at 1200 South Caledonia Road in Laurinburg.

"We invited Rep. Alexander because both he and his father, Kelly M. Alexander, Sr., were past chairmen of the North Carolina State Conference of NAACP Branches," said Robert Malloy, president of the Scotland County Branch of the NAACP. "We thought it fitting that since he and his father were such proponents of the organization that it would be good to invite him here to speak."

Rep. Garland Pierce will introduce Alexander at the gathering after opening remarks by Malloy.

Light refreshments will be served following the program.

"We plan to have a repast afterwards, where folks can congregate and talk prior to leaving," Malloy said. "We invite everyone to come join The Scotland County Branch of the NAACP as we celebrate this event."

The NAACP was founded on Feb. 12, 1909 by a group of 60 prominent Americans which included civil rights activist and writer W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimké, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, and Florence Kelley. The Race Riot of 1908 is considered to have been the catalyst for the creation of the organization.

The mission of the NAACP is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination."

For information visit www.naacp.org.