The Gloucester Branch of the NAACP will celebrate its 85th anniversary at a cake and ice cream social on Saturday afternoon, and the public is invited to share in the festivities.
On March 13, 1939, the national organization granted a charter to initiate the Gloucester NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The first president was G. Nelson Carter, the grandfather of Dianne Carter de Mayo who is a member of the Gloucester NAACP executive committee and chair of the chapter’s Youth Works committee.
G. Nelson Carter was instrumental in helping pay the bail to free Gloucester native Irene Morgan from the Saluda jail when she was arrested on July 16, 1944, for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus bound for Baltimore, Maryland. This was 11 years before Rosa Parks, and resulted in the Supreme Court determining that segregation on interstate transportation is unconstitutional. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund led by William Hastie and future Supreme Court ...