The Formation of the Wooster NAACP – Wooster Digital History Project

A shot of Jim Harris, a student at the College of Wooster who was outspoken about civil rights issues, from the College of Wooster’s newspaper, The Voice. Courtesy of *The Wooster Voice*, 1965.

There were two chapters of the NAACP established in Wooster. In 1963, Mark Denbeaux established a campus chapter at the College of Wooster, with the Wooster/Orville chapter following in 1965.¹ Both iterations focused on education in the community, and the two also participated in several Civil Rights Era struggles, both in the South and in Wooster. While the College NAACP has disbanded and reformed several times over its existence, the local NAACP has stood strong for over fifty years. Both organizations would have a focus on education, and Denbeaux called for tutoring as the campus NAACP’s first priority ²The finest moment for either chapter came when Rosa Parks visited Wooster in 1989 with the help of the local NAACP and the event chairperson, Lydia Thompson.

The members of the newly founded NAACP chapter in Wooster pose at an event, 2019. Courtesy of Wooster News.

For further reading:

The Wooster Daily Record, Feb. 5^th, 1969.

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