Our History
The Lee County NAACP Branch 5110-B has a distinguished legacy of advancing civil rights, voting rights, educational equality, and fair political representation in a community that confronted some of the nation's most deeply entrenched racial barriers. Fort Myers was once described as one of the most segregated cities in the country, and a study of Census residential patterns later identified the greater Fort Myers area as the most residentially segregated metropolitan area in the South.
Against this backdrop, local Freedom Fighters organized for change. Arminas Walker's extraordinary effort to register approximately 1,000 Black voters drew the attention of nationally prominent civil-rights leaders Thurgood Marshall and Harry T. Moore. Under early Branch President Rev. Isadore Edwards Jr., the NAACP helped challenge segregation in Lee County's public schools, beginning a federal desegregation struggle that continued for approximately 35 years before the School District was ultimately declared a unitary system. Former Branch President Veronica S. Shoemaker became a driving force for school desegregation, voting rights, and fair political representation and later became the first Black member of the Fort Myers City Council.
Generations later, under President James X. Muwakkil, the Branch again challenged inequities within Lee County schools by filing a federal Title VI civil-rights complaint addressing racial disparities in student discipline, academic opportunities and achievement, graduation outcomes, alternative-school placement, and law-enforcement referrals. The action resulted in a formal agreement with the School District that included restorative practices and alternatives to suspension, diversity and inclusion measures, bias and structural-racism training, review of disciplinary practices, greater transparency and data sharing, additional support for schools with greater needs, and continuing community engagement.
From voter registration and desegregation to political representation and modern educational justice, Lee County NAACP Branch 5110-B has helped transform the civic landscape of Lee County—and continues the work of generations of Freedom Fighters who organized, advocated, and stood for equality when change was neither easy nor assured.