The campus chapter of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has a busy schedule planned this fall.
In the month of October alone, the chapter will be participating in the fall festival on campus, promoting a membership drive and sponsoring a pumpkin-decorating contest and judging and a food drive called Trick-or-Treat For Others to Eat. A big goal is to spread the word about their organization and urge others to join the NAACP.
Deirdre Gudger, a junior, is serving her first year as president of the ETSU chapter and is concerned that some students aren’t even aware the chapter exists. “The only thing I saw them [the NAACP] do were the fliers for the N word,” Gudger said.
After that, she said she and her friends decided to go to a few meetings. When the vote for officers was held shortly after, Gudger was elected.
During this past September she and other members attended the NAACP State Convention held in Jonesborough. They went to lectures on issues in the news such as the Jena Six protests and controversial rap lyrics. There were also workshops on how to bring new people into the organization, which was very beneficial, Gudger said.
Gudger and other members of the NAACP have been writing the meeting times and place on the sidewalk outside the Culp Center in hopes of drawing people into the meetings.
At first, Gudger said that some members felt like as long as they and other members knew when the meetings were taking place, that was fine. Now, they realize that being a member of an organization means they need to bring new people in so they have been working to get the word out there.
Nationally, the NAACP was founded in 1908 after race riots in Springfield, Ill. inspired William English Walling to write an article on the events. Mary White Ovington, who was living in New York at the time, read the article and wrote to Walling. They met in Ovington’s apartment, and the NAACP was born.
At a recent meeting of the ETSU chapter, Jeralyn Walker, a senior who is a two-year member of the NAACP, said she wants students to know that anyone is welcome to share their ideas, both positive and negative.
Walker also said that the chapter works on projects to benefit both the campus and the community. For example, all of our donations collected during the food drive will be donated to local shelters.
Michael George, NAACP member, said he considers the NAACP an old organization that is rich with history, and has played a major role in the civil rights movement, and wants people to spread the word. George also said that he doesn’t want people to think of the NAACP here on campus in context with a certain color, but just as a student organization.
Freshman Alonja Banks agreed. “I want people to get involved, not only people of color, but everyone,” Banks said, “And I want to get it out there that the NAACP isn’t just for African-American people, but it’s for everybody because not everybody knows that.”
She also wants the students of ETSU to think of the NAACP as an inviting, friendly atmosphere where people can come to learn and be enlightened.
For more information about the NAACP, visit www.naacp.org. If you are interested in going to a meeting or joining the campus chapter of the NAACP, keep an eye out for meeting times will be posted around campus.

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