NAACP Youth Council

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The NAACP Youth Council is a branch of the NAACP in which youth are actively involved. In past years, council participants organized under the council's name to make major strides in the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The 1958 Oklahoma City Lunch-counter Sit-in, guided by activist Clara Luper, was organized by the local Youth Council, and Claudette Colvin, the first person to refuse to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, was a member of the Council.

The NAACP Youth Council is composed of hundreds of state and county-wide operations in which youth (usually teens) volunteer to share their voices or opinions with their fellow council members, and then strive to address the issues raised on a local or national level. Sometimes this volunteer work expands to an international scale.

Mission

"The mission of the NAACP Youth & College Division shall be to inform youth of the problems affecting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities; to advance the economic, education, social and political status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities and their harmonious cooperation with other peoples; to stimulate an appreciation of the African Diaspora and other people of color’s contribution to civilization; and to develop an intelligent, militant effective youth leadership"

Objectives

• Leadership and Activism Training
• Proactive Political and Community Activism
• Recruitment of new Youth Units
• Maintenance of existing Youth Units
• Public awareness of the necessity of youth involvement
• To be the leaders and trendsetters in the area of youth leadership and civil rights training

External links

• Official web site