ACT-SO (Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics)

 

Modern Focus: Elevate Black and Brown youth innovation and empowerment as a frontline defense against systemic erasure

 

Strategic Functions:

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•    Equip youth with tools in AI, environmental science, civic tech, and the arts to lead the next era of change
•    Use ACT-SO as a pipeline to STEM careers, policy fellowships, and national platforms
•    Celebrate Black brilliance as resistance to invisibility and tokenism
•    Develop partnerships with colleges and innovation hubs to support ACT-SO alumni
•    Offer mentorship and scholarship pipelines for youth pursuing higher education and entrepreneurship

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Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs

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Modern Focus: Protect Black and Brown service members from discrimination, disenfranchisement, and economic neglect

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Demand VA reform to address racial disparities in benefits, healthcare, and mental health access
•    Advocate against extremist targeting of Black and Brown service members
•    Build support networks for returning veterans reintegrating into community life
•    Host workshops on housing, employment, and benefits navigation for veterans
•    Create peer support circles to address veteran mental health and trauma recovery

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Community Coordination

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Modern Focus: Build Black and Brown coalitions for political protection, power-building and resource sharing with the NAACP as the hub 

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Unite labor, LGBTQ+, immigrant, youth, and Indigenous allies under a shared anti-fascist framework
•    Develop rapid-response infrastructure for community crisis moments (raids, protests, policy rollbacks)
•    Build long-term, inter-movement partnerships that can survive political whiplash
•    Host regular coalition roundtables to align strategies and share resources
•    Build partnerships with local and national groups to amplify impact and avoid duplication of efforts

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Communications, Press & Publicity

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Modern Focus: Control our narrative, counter disinformation, and amplify unapologetic Black truth

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Train media justice warriors to expose misinformation, especially targeting Black voters and youth
•    Build independent, Black-led media platforms and content strategies
•    Monitor AI-generated propaganda and social media manipulation in Black communities and educate the public on such issues
•    Promote NAACP initiatives through press releases and marketing campaigns
•    Develop a rapid-response communications strategy to counter policy threats and public misinformation

 

Criminal Justice

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Modern Focus: Dismantle the criminal punishment system and build new models of community safety and public justice and accountability 

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Organize to reform jail conditions on the way to abolishing jails, halt police militarization and excessive force, and end cash bail
•    Advocate for sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration and eliminate racial disparities in policing and prosecution
•    Advance community-led safety initiatives as alternatives to traditional law enforcement
•    Establish a Police Accountability Task Force to document abuse and demand reform
•    Create a system for tracking, reporting, and advocating around local police conduct and complaints
•    Eliminate racial disparities in policing and prosecution
•    Monitor local law enforcement budgets and advocate for the reallocation of funds toward community wellness initiatives

 

Economic Development

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Modern Focus: Build intergenerational Black wealth and ownership as protection against economic apartheid

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Launch cooperative economics programs, land trusts, and financial literacy bootcamps
•    Fight algorithmic bias in hiring, lending, and housing
•    Secure tech and innovation investments in Black and Brown neighborhoods
•    Support Black-owned businesses and job creation through local and digital directories
•    Facilitate procurement partnerships with city and corporate contracts for Black vendors

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Education

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Modern Focus: Protect and radicalize Black and Brown learning spaces under attack from anti-CRT, book bans, and privatization

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Create and encourage curricula that center Black and Brown history, joy, resistance, and futures
•    Defend school districts from hostile takeovers and funding cuts and partner with them to protect Black and Brown learning spaces 
•    Build NAACP-led education justice networks with students, teachers, and parents
•    Advocate for student mental health services and culturally responsive counseling in schools
•    Train parents and students on education policy advocacy and school board/school district accountability

 

Environmental and Climate Justice

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Modern Focus: Use climate justice to fight for Black survival in the face of disaster capitalism

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Mobilize Black communities to fight air, water, and energy injustice
•    Lead campaigns for green jobs, clean energy access, and community resilience hubs
•    Challenge climate disinformation and push for just transition policy at local and federal levels
•    Promote equitable climate disaster relief efforts and resiliency planning for marginalized communities
•    Partner with environmental scientists and legal advocates to track environmental racism trends

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Finance

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Modern Focus: Sustain the movement through radical transparency, redistribution, and grassroots investment

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Develop member-informed budgets aligned with liberation priorities
•    Track and redistribute funds to high-impact frontline campaigns
•    Support financial autonomy through strategic grant writing and fundraising
•    Implement a transparent financial reporting system accessible to members
•    Provide training for committee leaders on budget development and financial accountability

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Freedom Fund

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Modern Focus: Transform fundraising into political education and community mobilization

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Host events that are cultural and political—spaces to fundraise and organize
•    Build year-round giving networks beyond corporate sponsorship
•    Develop a base of funders who support unapologetic, Black-led resistance
•    Host a high-revenue generating Freedom Fund Gala annually with corporate and grassroots support
•    Build a donor stewardship strategy to deepen engagement and sustain giving

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Health

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Modern Focus: Declare Black health as a site of resistance—body, mind, spirit, and gender autonomy

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Mobilize around reproductive justice, disability justice, and mental health access
•    Challenge medical racism, healthcare deserts, and forced birth policies
•    Train community health workers and support mutual aid-based care systems
•    Build culturally relevant mental health partnerships and resource guides for members
•    Host wellness events that center healing justice, intergenerational care, and community resilience

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Housing

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Modern Focus: Protect Black housing as a human right in the face of gentrification, displacement, and climate crisis

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Organize tenants unions and housing cooperatives
•    Expose real estate redlining and discrimination in the mortgage industry
•    Advocate for anti-eviction and affordable housing policies
•    Launch legal clinics and educational sessions on renters' rights
•    Campaign for fair zoning laws and sustainable development that centers Black residents

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Labor and Industry

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Modern Focus: Fuel a new Black labor movement in the gig economy and beyond while mobilizing and protecting Black workers

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Push for universal basic income and expanded worker protections
•    Create a Labor Justice Rapid Response Team to confront layoffs and retaliation targeting Black workers
•    Develop training programs to support Black workers in automation-threatened industries
•    Advocate for worker protections in state and federal policy platforms, countering Project 2025 rollbacks
•    Launch a "Black Labor Watch" initiative to track anti-worker legislation and organize targeted campaigns
•    Partner with Black-owned cooperatives and trade programs to strengthen workforce pipelines

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Legal Redress

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Modern Focus: Be a legal firewall for Black rights in the justice system while investigating civil rights complaints in the community and making referrals for legal representation when appropriate

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Strategic Functions:

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•    File impact litigation on voter suppression, education bans, and protest criminalization
•    Train legal observers and support movement defense funds
•    Track and challenge civil rights rollbacks at the state level
•    Proactively propose legislation and policies on a local, state and federal level that protects Black and Brown people in the justice system
•    Build a community-based legal defense and referral network for civil rights violations
•    Launch a “Know Your Rights” campaign to educate communities about legal protections and police and justice system interactions

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Membership & Life Membership

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Modern Focus: Build a mass base - bigger, younger, bolder – while maintaining and re-engaging the current and former membership 

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Strategic Functions:

•    Recruit at festivals, protests, barbershops, and schools—meet people where they are
•    Build infrastructure for digital membership and mobile organizing
•    Make membership meaningful through leadership pipelines and activism training
•    Launch aggressive recruiting of corporate memberships and community sponsorships
•    Develop peer-to-peer recruitment programs with performance-based incentives

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Political Action

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Modern Focus: Organize against white nationalist governance and anti-Black and Brown legislation

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Train community members in policy monitoring, lobbying, and campaign disruption
•    Launch rapid-response campaigns to stop harmful local ordinances and state laws
•    Fight to expand voting access, including for incarcerated and immigrant populations
•    Create and distribute a comprehensive report card on politicians based on their performance on civil and human rights
•    Build an NAACP-led civic engagement data dashboard for ongoing electoral impact tracking

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Prison Branch Support

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Modern Focus: Uplift incarcerated voices as movement leaders

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Build inside-outside organizing connections between branches and prison units
•    Offer curriculum or reading groups on history, abolition, law, and civic engagement—fostering political consciousness and leadership among incarcerated members
•    Create reentry pipelines that connect returning citizens with housing, work, and civic power
•    Establish partnerships with service providers to offer job training, mental health support, and housing connections for individuals transitioning out of incarceration
•    Compile lived experiences of incarcerated individuals to build community reports, legislative testimony, and public pressure campaigns around prison conditions, medical neglect, solitary confinement, and abuse 
•    Explore legal and technological pathways for more consistent communication between prison branches and NAACP leadership (e.g., secure email platforms, digital newsletters

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Religious Affairs

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Modern Focus: Reclaim the radical Black faith tradition for movement building

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Partner with churches, mosques, and spiritual institutions for activism and care work
•    Create interfaith coalitions against white Christian nationalism
•    Ground NAACP actions in spiritual ethics of justice, equity, and liberation
•    Host interfaith dialogues on civil rights, policing, and reproductive justice
•    Mobilize congregations to register voters and support policy campaigns
•    Mobilize churches, mosques, temples, and spiritual communities to take immediate action during crises—e.g., police killings, civil rights violations, voter suppression efforts, and environmental disasters
•    Offer faith-rooted education that connects scripture and tradition to abolition, economic justice, reproductive rights, and anti-racism, designed for congregations, youth ministries, and interfaith circles
•    Organize theological roundtables and media campaigns to counter white Christian nationalism and religiously framed political propaganda, while affirming inclusive and justice-oriented faith traditions
•    Organize prayer vigils, freedom songs, chaplain support, and healing spaces at protests, rallies, and organizing events—anchoring the spiritual dimension of our struggle
•    Host gatherings to align across Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, LGBTQ+, and multifaith groups on collective civil rights issues, with space for healing, planning, and prophetic action

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Women in the NAACP (WIN)

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Modern Focus: Center Black feminist leadership and fight intersecting oppressions

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Elevate issues of gender-based violence, reproductive freedom, and economic equity
•    Build cross-generational leadership and mentorship programs
•    Organize WIN around a Black feminist political agenda
•    Advocate for childcare equity, maternal health access, and protection for LGBTQ+ women
•    Host women's empowerment summits and leadership development trainings

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Youth Work

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Modern Focus: Empower youth to lead, not just learn

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Give youth real power in shaping the branch’s strategies and campaigns
•    Train the next generation of organizers in digital tools, storytelling, and abolitionist vision
•    Build autonomous youth councils with real budgets and voting rights
•    Offer fellowships and stipends for youth-led initiatives and campaigns
•    Create intergenerational leadership exchange programs for mentoring and shared power

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Young Adult

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Modern Focus: Make the NAACP a home for emerging Black leaders

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Strategic Functions:

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•    Bridge college-to-career transitions with movement roles
•    Mobilize young adults in political education, public office runs, and grassroots strategy
•    Serve as incubators for bold, disruptive leadership in the branch and beyond
•    Create networking and skill-building events to support young Black professionals
•    Partner with student organizations to build NAACP pipeline from campus to community
•    Host listening sessions and surveys to shape a youth-driven platform focused on economic justice, reproductive rights, environmental justice, and racial equity in tech and media