Silent Parade: Google Doodle Commemorates NAACP Protest, See Doodles Archive

Google used its Google Doodle to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the “Silent Parade” on Friday. The parade was one of the first forms of protest arranged by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP.

The parade took place on July 28, 1917, when 10,000 people took to the streets of Manhattan to silently march in protest for the unfair and often violent treatment of African Americans across the United States. It was the first major act of protest against the violent treatment of a race the country had ever seen, according to the NAACP.

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Friday’s Doodle shows the parade’s participants traveling silently down 5th Avenue in New York. On the day, the crowd was made up of men, women and children marching for the cause. The children and women were all dressed in white and the men all wore dark suits, according to the NAACP, which can be seen in the Doodle.

The protesters held signs as they marched but they didn’t chant, sing or use other protest tactics that required they make any noise. To convey their message Boy Scouts handed out fliers to onlookers and passersby.

Google has created more than 2000 Doodles for different pages around the world since starting the Doodle program. “ A group of Googlers get together regularly to brainstorm and decide which events will be celebrated with a doodle. The ideas for the doodles come from numerous sources including Googlers and Google users,” says Google’s information page on the Doodles.

There is an online archive of all the Doodles Google has created over the years dating back to the first Doodle ever that was about Burning Man. You can search the archive by date or the event the doodle had to do with. Sometimes the Doodles are just photos, sometimes they’re animated and move and if you’re lucky you catch one of the Doodles that doubles as a game.

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Google’s Doodle team gets together to brainstorm ideas for what the Doodles should be. Usually they commemorate a birthday, anniversary or event of some type.

In addition to the team Google has creating the Doodles, the site hosts a nationwide contest every year for students of various age groups. There’s usually a theme that applicants have to work around and they submit work that has to do with that theme. This year the theme was “What I see for the future,” and the winner was a high school student from Stratford, Conn. The winning Doodle image showed people of all backgrounds