A newly organized North Shore branch of the NAACP was officially established when the national board of the civil rights organization voted July 25 to award the group a charter.
The new chapter represents a 17-community region composed of Amesbury, Beverly, Danvers, Essex, Gloucester, Hamilton, Ipswich, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Newbury, Newburyport, Rockport, Rowley, Salem, Salisbury, Topsfield, and Wenham, according to Juan Cofield, president of the New England Area Conference of the NAACP and a national board member.
The branch was organized by a Hamilton-Wenham Human Rights Coalition subgroup headed by Natalie Bowers and Tachou Dubuisson Brown, but is independent of the coalition.
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Cofield submitted the charter application on the group’s behalf after organizers had recruited well over the 100 founding members required to form a chapter. As of July 24, it had enlisted 294 people from 27 communities, according to Bowers.
The chapter is open to all, even those outside the region. For more information, go to www.northshoremanaacp.com.
John Laidler can be reached at laidler@globe.com.