Youth & College 90th Anniversary

Young Leaders, Lasting Legacy

Founded in 1936, the division was built on a bold belief: that young people are not just leaders of tomorrow, but powerful agents of change today. Black youth exercised empowerment by organizing through their communities to challenge injustice head-on.

The Youth & College division has continued to evolve by organizing around voting rights, education equity, and social justice issues affecting new generations. Through every era, it has remained a training ground for organizers, artists, educators, public servants, and movement builders.

The next generation of civil rights leaders is making waves now. This is not just history, it is a living legacy written by young leaders who stepped forward, spoke out, and helped bend the arc toward justice.

For 90 years, the NAACP Youth and College Division has been a catalyst for courage, leadership, and change, empowering generations of young people to not only imagine a better future, but to build it. 90 years of challenging systems and building young Black political power.

- Tylik McMillan, National Director, Youth and College

Rise Up Membership Campaign Hero - Youth and College

Celebrate Loud and Proud

From sit-ins and freedom rides to voter registration drives, policy advocacy, and digital organizing, youth leaders have consistently shaped the direction and impact of the movement. Use our toolkit to renew your commitment to the next evolution of activism, tell your story, find ways to amplify our history through social media, and more!

Get the Toolkit

Voices That Shape History

We want to hear from you! We are collecting testimonials from current and former Youth & College members to document the division's impact on your life, leadership, and community.

Tell Your Story

Through the Years

Learn more about the Youth & College Division's achievements over the past 90 years.

- 1934 - A group of students from Howard University protest against the anti-lynching in Washington, DC.
- 1935 - Given the lobbying efforts of Juanita Jackson and others for a national youth program for the NAACP at the 26th annual convention, held in St. Louis, Missouri, in July 1935, board of directors voted to restructure its youth division.
- 1936 - The restructuring of the youth work led to the establishment of the NAACP "Youth & College Division" in March 1936. Young people embrace the urgency and dedication exhibited by those same young people in 1936. 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;
- 1937- Costigan–Wagner bill was reintroduced in each session of Congress in 1937. February 12, 1937 on Abraham Lincoln's birthday. The NAACP Youth & College launched their first nationwide campaign to gain support for the measure.
- 1937 - In Houston, Texas after several demonstrations drawing attention to the large number of automobile accidents that occurred near black public school, the local NAACP Youth Council was able to get traffic officers stationed in these areas.
- 1938 - At the 29th annual convention, social reformer Charles Edward Russell, one of the NAACP's founders, decried the "Mistreatment of the Negro in Public School Textbooks," and denounced at least seventeen specific textbook that included numerous distortions about African American life and history.
- 1939 - As a response during the 1938 -1939 school year, NAACP youth groups launched a nationwide project to survey history textbooks used in local public school districts, identify those that distorted African and African American history, and demand that these books be removed from use in classrooms.
- 1948 - The Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio youth council charges against a number of public places which practiced discrimination in their communities. Three Cincinnati youth council members were sued for $50,000 by a waitress who had been arrested for discrimination against them.
- 1949 - On April 1949 forty- one senior from Texas Negro Colleges, led by NAACP Southwest Regional Secretary Donald Jones, presented in person their applications for admission to the University of Texas graduate schools, which was denied. 21 year old Herman Barnett became the first Negro student at the University of Texas after 75 years.
- 1950 - In 1950, the Virginia State NAACP College Chapter was recognized for its leadership in the sit-ins in the city of St. Petersburg. The College Chapters of Indiana and Wilberforce succeeded in getting several local restaurants to serve Negro patrons while the NAACP College Chapter at Florida A&M was financially contributing to the Tallahassee bus protest.
- 1956 - In 1956, the Division took an active role in encouraging letters of protest in the treatment of black student, Autherine Lucy, at Alabama University. As a result of this pressure, student officers in the university passed a resolution calling upon the administration to admit Miss Lucy and urging students not to participate in further demonstrations against her.
- 1958 - In 1958, division units in Wichita, Kansas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, set the tone for the civil rights movement of the sixties by launching the first of many sit-in demonstrations at lunch counters and other public places to protest their second class citizenship. That same year the NAACP awarded its coveted Spingarn Medal to nine black teenagers who dared to break the color line at their local high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. 1958 -The Oklahoma City Sit-in Movement was led by NAACP Youth Council leader Clara Luper, a local high school teacher, and young local students, including Luper's eight-year old daughter, who suggested the Sit-in be held.
- 1960s - During the 1960's, heightened activity by division units challenged all facets of discrimination. Division units conducted sit-ins, stand-ins, drive-ins, wade-ins, read-ins, mass demonstrations, protest marches, picket lines and selective buying campaigns in the South, Midwest and in virtually every other section of the country. They attended conferences, workshop sessions and rallies; they helped line up students to apply for transfers to integrated schools; and they assisted in voter registration drives.
- 1961 - The year 1961 saw Division units reach an all-time high in civil rights action. During the year, units led the first sit-ins to take place in the state of Mississippi at Jackson (March 9); integrated 42 new places of public accommodations in Oklahoma City including the John A. Brown Department Store; shifted the emphasis of sit-ins from public accommodations to the area of jobs; led a successful "selective buying" campaign in Durham, North Carolina, where more than 100 new job opportunities were made available to Negro wage earners; ended discrimination in off-campus housing against Negro students at Rutgers University; established active chapters at the following predominantly white institutions of higher learning in the south: Duke University, University of North Carolina and the University of Oklahoma marking the first time since 1948 that the Association has been able to organize and gain formal recognition at such institutions in the south.
- 1972 - The NAACP Youth & College registered nearly an half million people to vote across the country.
- 1980s - Priority for the Division in the 80's was voter registration and mobilization. Registration efforts in the northeast were intense. Division units conducted registration drives in shopping centers, subway stations, cheese lines and other public places. Voter registration walk-a-thons were conducted by the New York and New Jersey State conferences; Stamford and Waterbury, Connecticut Youth Councils; and Boston, Massachusetts units. The Over-ground railroad was a three-phase project whose major goal was to stamp out voter apathy and encourage voter participation. This project was one that included youth and adults who walked from northern to southern California, throughout the Midwest, in the south and on the east coast.
- 2000 - South Carolina Youth & College Division had the largest march at King Day at the dome.
- 2001 - In 2001 death threats against black students at Penn State prompted an extended sit-in and a debate over whether the university was doing enough to protect black students and promote diversity. Attendees: Youth and College Unit, Penn State College Chapter Howard University College Chapter, Jeff. Johnson – National Director in attendance.
- 2007 - The NAACP Youth & College Division mobilized youth units across the country to Jena, Louisiana to march against the excessive punishment against the Jena 6 boys.
- 2007 - Atlanta Youth & College Division lead the march in Atlanta, GA to keep the Voter Right Act alive.
- 2009 - The NAACP condemned an off-campus party held by members of a UC San Diego fraternity mocking Black History Month and urged the university to punish those involved.
- 2010 - September 15, 2010 Mississippi State Youth & College Division mobilized over a 1000 young people to the state capitol to speak out for the freedom of the Scott sisters.
- 2011 - North Carolina Youth & College mobilize young people to Wake County to address the re-segregation issues promoted by the school board.
- 2016- Partnered with Chance the Rapper's Magnificent Coloring World Tour to register young voters before the 2016 presidential election
- 2019 - Youth and College Division organized around the release of Cynthia Brown
- 2020 - Youth and College membership doubled from 13,000 to just shy of 26,000 and reactivated 102 charters.
- 2021 - Led against the call for Student Debt Cancellation
- 2022 - 40 youth delegation to Amos C. Brown trip to Ghana
- 2024 - Recruited 5% of the 300,000 goal and 100 units participated in the civic holidays towards the 2024 presidential election.
- 2025 - Sued the department of Education and hosted a legislative conference that held 37 legislative meetings in coronation to diversity, equity inclusion and college affordability. and sued the department of Education.
- 2026 - On February 7, 2026, we proudly joined the Young Workers March in Washington, D.C., standing in solidarity with young people from across the country who are organizing for dignity, equity, and economic justice in the workplace. Together, we marched with purpose, affirming that when young workers rise, we all rise.

Young Leaders, Lasting Legacy

1930's

1940's

1950's

1960's

1970's

1980's

2000's

2010's

2020's

Make a Difference - Donate