ABOUT US

The Loudoun County Branch of the NAACP was chartered on March 24, 1940 around the issue of equal education. At the urging of Attorney Charles Hamilton Houston (Dean of Howard University School of Law, Legal Counsel to the NAACP and later, mentor to Mr. Thurgood Marshall), a local beautician (Marie Medley) sent away for its charter and became the first president of the Loudoun County Chapter of the NAACP.

Members and leaders of the previously established County-Wide League ( a collection of PTA organizations throughout Loudoun County who formed for the purpose of getting an African American high school built and bus transportation for its children to its schools throughout the county) shifted their energies to the NAACP. Members of the African American community purchased 8 acres of land in Leesburg for $4000.00 for the purpose of building a high school for African American students.

After letter(s) to the Loudoun County School Board went nowhere, attorney Charles Hamilton Houston threatened a lawsuit against the Loudoun County Public School system for not providing equal opportunities for African Americans. That urged LCPS to agree to provide school bus transportation and build an accredited high school. In exchange, the 8 acres of land purchased by African Americans was deeded to the school system for $1. On that land, Frederick Douglass high school opened for African Americans in September of 1941, and served that purpose until 1968 (14 years after Thurgood Marshall won the supreme court decision that was to end segregation. Loudoun County Public Schools fully integrated its school system after the United States Department of Justice order in 1968).

Today, the Loudoun County Chapter of the NAACP still holds education at the forefront of its struggle as a Civil Rights Organization. Its membership enjoys the contributions of a diverse set of individuals that are willing to stand up for those who are in need of support, particularly our youth.