Penn NAACP president sits down with 'The Daily Pennsylvanian'

College senior Megan Reed recently sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to reflect on her experience as the president of Penn’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

During her time at Penn, Reed has held multiple leadership positions, including her role as co-chair of the Undergraduate Africana Studies Advisory Board and three years of mentoring students through Community School Student Partnerships.
Her term as NAACP president ended on April 22; now, she is preparing to become a secondary school science teacher for Teach for America in Detroit.

Daily Pennsylvanian: How long has Penn had a chapter of the NAACP and what has its role at Penn consisted of?
Megan Reed: Penn’s chapter of the NAACP has actually been around for about four years. It existed on Penn’s campus previously in some capacity then it was rechartered by [Alexandria] Roman who graduated last year and has been an active alumni member since. It had faded from Penn’s campus due to general lack [of interest], but since it was rechartered, we have really been trying to work on internal and external projects. For example, we held an event last semester called “The Talented Tenth” to talk about the power of minorities at the University and our obligation to extend ourselves to the West Philadelphia community.

DP: How is the role of the NAACP changing on Penn’s campus?
MR: NAACP is becoming increasingly important due to the upward trend in tangible activism on campus. Last year, many student groups got together with the NAACP and different constituents of UMOJA to discuss the situation with Christopher Abreu. We wanted to have a physical show of solidarity. I feel like the NAACP will continue to become relevant because we’re now at a point where we’re seeing a heightened trend of civic engagement with the West Philadelphia community.

DP: What changes do you hope to see at Penn regarding activism in minority communities?
MR: My freshman or sophomore year I don’t remember seeing as much tangible activism on Penn’s campus as there is today which is a reason I want NAACP to go into such a cross-cultural direction. A lot of people, especially minorities, don’t support each other’s causes, which I find very unfortunate. I went to the Muslim Students Association’s protest and saw very few black students — it was very upsetting.
I would also really like to see something put in place that’s annual — comparable to We Belong — in which many students participate and commemorate the fact that Penn is really devoted to tangible activism. We shouldn’t wait for something to happen or someone to get shot to hold an event. Condemnation of race happens all the time and it’s very important that different minorities share one another’s burdens and support each other as peers at Penn.

DP: What are you hoping NAACP will do differently in the future?
MR: UMOJA currently has a very varied population with sororities and performing arts groups so right now I’m working on trying to make the NAACP a more direct political arm of UMOJA. I also find that a lot of initiatives led by different minority groups are the same so we should try to make these cross-cultural connections happen.

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