POTTSTOWN >> The interim election for the reorganization of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP has put Jonathan Corson in the president’s position until November.
The interim first vice president is Tyrone Robinson.
Carla Day was selected as interim secretary and Helen Wilson as interim treasurer.
The following candidates were chosen for the interim executive committee: Emma Beauford, Cheryl Hespeth-Mayo, Tracey Lawson, Edsel Martin, Tyrone Phillips, Vernon Ross, Robert Watson.
These interim officers will be responsible for overseeing the generation election for the re-formed chapter, which carries branch number 2288.
To vote in the upcoming November election to pick permanent officers for the Pottstown chapter, a voter must have been a NAACP member of the chapter for 30 days.
The normal election process will begin next month.
For decades, the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP was led by civil rights activist Newstell Marable, who died in Jan. 21, 2015, at the age of 84.
During its hey-day, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Pottstown chapter was involved in numerous civil rights protests and actions, working with unions and protesting the then-refusal of Sunnybrook to allow African-Americans in its pool and speaking in Boyertown in opposition to the Ku Klux Klan.
In more recent years, however, membership had dwindled, with the last real public efforts being the attempts to re-open or re-build the former Gruber Pool in Memorial Park and concerns about operations of the Ricketts Community Center.
But a new period of activism may be on the horizon.
The Pottstown chapter will join with the five other NAACP chapters in Montgomery County to hold a press conference in Norristown next week to announce plans to seek collaboration with Montgomery County Police departments to implement a strategic initiative to address the “wide divide with many American police departments and the communities that they serve. This distrust deprives the community of the most efficient police protection and increases the risk of harm to both police and residents,” according to information released by the Coalition of Montgomery County NAACP Branches.
“We intend to make concerted efforts to improve the level of trust between our minority and low income communities and the police departments which serves those communities,” according to the release.
