My Path to the Seacoast NAACP
By Betty Lane, SCHC Companion
When I moved to the New Hampshire seacoast some twenty plus years ago, I began to notice that I did not see any people of color while going about my daily activities around town. This surprised me, as I had moved from the Boston area suburbs, where I had not been consciously aware that I saw people of color very day. So, I was pleased when after a year or so in New Hampshire I found a church, Christ Church, in the neighboring city of Portsmouth, that was visibly more diverse. Its members included people of color, differently abled folks, LGBTQ+ folks, and even, as time went on, more children. In addition, on the church property there was a slave cemetery, part of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire.
Fairly early in my time as a Companion, I read Pauli Murray’s book Proud Shoes. You probably know that Pauli Murray (1910-1985) was an activist for civil rights and women’s rights. She was also the first African American women to be ordained an Episcopal priest. Murray’s description of the Civil War from her grandfather’s diaries gave me a new understanding of the horrors of that war. I really cannot remember if it was through this reading, or in going to Black Heritage Trail events, or after attending a program given by Debbie Irving, author of Waking Up White, at one of the SCHC Boston Chapters that I started reading more about the racial history of this country.
I became more conscious in seeking out what was more actively anti-racist. I did this by increased reading and through attending as many Black Heritage Trail activities as possible. In 2019 I was even on a panel at the Black Heritage Trail’s annual Black New England Conference talking about Pauli Murray. Of course, I knew about the NAACP, the country’s oldest civil rights organization. It had been founded in 1909 by a group of both Black and white folks. But it came to my attention that the NAACP encourages everyone to join. So, I found and joined my local branch, Seacoast NAACP, a number of years before the pandemic. I attended meetings and got to know folks. I continued to attend by Zoom during the pandemic.
As the pandemic wound down and it was decided to begin in-person meetings again, Seacoast NAACP discovered that their previous meeting place was no longer available. I asked and my church agreed that the Seacoast NAACP could meet in one of the Christ Church rooms. Because COVID was still around, the group decided to have hybrid meetings. I offered my Zoom account, we purchased an integrated video/audio meeting device, and I did the tech setup and became the video host for our meetings, which I still do.
When it came time for the election of officers, I was asked and agreed to be secretary. As secretary of a small branch that is rebuilding after the death of a couple of key figures, my primary function is membership. This includes interfacing with the national membership online system to report new and renewed memberships and tracking in our local database the memberships coming from our website and by mail. I am fortunate to have a faithful assistant! I have recruited a few church friends to join the Seacoast NAACP. My current membership project is to find ways to contact the hundreds of inactive members listed for our branch on the national NAACP website. Our goal is to increase our branch membership so that we can more effectively give local support to the stated purpose of the NAACP – advancing civil rights for everyone.
I find working as part of the NAACP and actively participating in Black Heritage Trail and other justice activities in my area not only fulfilling, but also fun and a source of new friends.
