About the organization

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Founded in 1944, McComb’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became quite active in the 1950s. After the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, chapter president C. C. Bryant and Webb Owens recruited new members, several of whom proved instrumental in McComb’s civil rights struggle. In 1957 representatives from the chapter went to Washington, D.C., to testify in favor of the Civil Rights Act. With the help of Medgar Evers, Bryant founded a youth group to protest police brutality and to study black literature. Bryant also owned a barbershop that functioned as a center of information for the black community. Increased white violence and intimidation caused the McComb NAACP chapter and its activities to become covert.

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