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NAACP Youth Council News Bulletin, excerpts
Date: December 1947
Caption: This is a copy of the November/December 1947 issue of the NAACP Youth Council’s publication, also called The Challenge. Ella Baker served as an adviser for the Youth Council and assisted in its young members’ development of the publication. In this issue, Youth Council members described their activism against segregation, including a “JimCro” probe into CCNY.
The document above comes from a publication printed by the NAACP’s New York City Youth Council called The Challenge. Starting in 1935, the NAACP organized youth councils, originally composed of young people ages nineteen to twenty-five. Over time, more high school students joined youth councils and junior youth councils were created for students thirteen and under. Youth councils throughout the country took part in demonstrations and even started their own. Ella Baker, who worked with young people through the NAACP in a variety of ways, was one of the adults who worked with the New York City NAACP’s Youth Council. Adult leaders like Ella Baker supported young people as they determined the issues that were important to them and helped bring their ideas to the broader public. This issue of The Challenge illustrates how students crafted their own voice in challenging segregation and other issues relevant to their lives.
Categories: student activism, higher education, community activism
Tags: organizing, racist segregation, student writing, photography, imagery, and visual representation
This item is part of "Before the Boycotts: Youth Organizing and Direct Action" in "Boycotting New York’s Segregated Schools"
Item Details
Date: December 1947
Source: Schomburg Center, Ella Baker Collection
Copyright: Public domain. Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
How to cite: “NAACP Youth Council News Bulletin, excerpts,” in New York City Civil Rights History Project, Accessed: [Month Day, Year], https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/gallery/naacp-youth-council.
Questions to Consider
- What do you notice about this NAACP Youth Council publication? What do you wonder?
- What kind of stories are included in this issue of the publication? Do these stories and the voices that tell them reflect the perspectives of young people? What examples do you see in the text?
- How might this type of organizing work complement direct action protests (e.g. marches and boycotts) and political negotiations (e.g. the March on Washington meeting with President Kennedy)? How is it different?
References
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