NAACP chapter at UMD kicks off Black History Month with ‘NAACP Week’

Dozens of students gathered in Nyumburu Cultural Center for the first event of the University of Maryland’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s ‘NAACP Week,’ on Feb. 2.

“The mission of the NAACP is to achieve equity and civil rights for all Black and Brown communities,” said Madison Diggs, a junior kinesiology major at the university. “Black students have to always feel like they’re advocated for, that their voices [are] continuing to be heard, that they have people fighting for them.”

In high school, Diggs and other Black students struggled to communicate issues their community was facing to the administration despite having a Black Student Union that she was vice president of, she told Al-Hikmah. To avoid facing a similar issue in college, Diggs wanted to be a part of making a safe space for Black students to go to when they face issues including racial discrimination. 

As a result, Diggs reinstated the NAACP chapter at UMD with co-president Devonte Boswell in the spring of 2025.

“With the climate of the political state of our country, I would definitely say NAACP is a necessity in this country,” Boswell, who is a senior kinesiology major, said. “The voices of people of color, minorities, are being silenced by those who feel like our voices don’t matter, our voices don’t hold weight.” 

NAACP Week kicked off on the first week of Black History Month. Each day the organization held an event — including discussing Black mental health, holding an informative trivia night, and promoting advocacy and service, according to UMD NAACP’s Instagram.

“I hope they [attendees of NAACP Week] feel empowered to participate and engage in the work we do,” said Alisha Hussain, who serves as the programming chair and is a junior family health major. “To be active participants and catalysts for change, understanding that we as students have more of an impact than we may initially think that we do.” 

According to Boswell, each event during NAACP Week has a specific educational purpose, and they all ultimately represent the principles that the club has. 

“We [the e-board] all have a why as to why this organization means so much to us which is why we did the work to bring it back to campus,” said Boswell. “We want people [to] realize you have a community, you have people who are behind you, [you] have someone you can go to when you feel like you’re fighting by yourself.” 

_{Image credits: Cover photo by Hamza Muhib/Al-Hikmah.}