Brandon Neal named National Director of NAACP Youth and College Division

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2003 by Petrosino, Frankie

Brandon T. Neal has been named National Director of the NAACP Youth and College Division.

NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume, in a statement on the April 4 appointment, called Neal an example of the increased presence of young leaders in the NAACP. "Brandon brings critical grass-roots and community organizing skills to the position, and I am confident that he will be an asset to the Youth and College Division."

Neal, 24, is indeed no stranger to the energetic youth activism that characterizes more than 600 youth and college chapters across the country. The Windsor, Conn., native was a member of the greater Hartford NAACP Youth Council and joined the organization's college chapter while a student at Howard University.

After graduating from Howard in 2000, Neal joined the national staff of the NAACP as National Youth Council Coordinator. Before his new position, he was Mid-Atlantic youth field director. In his new post, Neal says he will seek to increase youth and college chapter membership and lay the groundwork for a new generation of young activists.

"We will educate young people on the issues that exist and train them to become leaders," he says of the division's plans to emphasize such skills as public speaking and running meetings.

Neal helped organize more than 2,000 young people from the Youth and College Division at the April 1 rally on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in support of affirmative action. He plans to follow up on the success of that event with a town hall meeting on affirmative action at the NAACP National Convention in Miami.

"We need to continue to guide young people into the 21st century," says Neal. "There is a dire need for young Black leaders."