The Hill’s Changemakers: Wisdom Cole, national director of the NAACP Youth & College Division

Wisdom O. Cole never intended to be an activist. He thought he’d graduate from University of California, Santa Cruz and head to medical school. 

That changed in 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. 

“When the verdict came out around Trayvon Martin, basically saying that he deserved to die and George Zimmerman was not guilty, that transformed a lot of the ways that I was thinking, as well as young Black people across America, recognizing that Trayvon Martin could have been any of us,” Cole told The Hill.   

His organizing led him to conversations with leaders including Angela Davis and Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. He began reading and learning about African American studies and became a field and state conference organizer for the Afrikan Black Coalition. 

It all culminated in 2021 when Cole was tapped to be the NAACP’s national director of the Youth & College Division, where he says he ensures young people have the tools to fight for liberation, are encouraged to use their voice and have opportunities to practice speaking about issues important to them.  

“I remember as a kid thinking that the only people who could be in elected office were old white men, but the face of democracy is changing each and every single day,” he said. “I always believed that as Black people, we are inherently political. There’s so much legislation that is made over our bodies, that are made over our communities, made over our future. I’d rather engage, I’d rather galvanize millions of young people to engage, to create a new future.” 

For Cole, that means organizing and educating around student loan forgiveness, global climate change, economic equality and ending police brutality. 

“In this moment in time, young people have to see a new deal for them, they have to see a future where the issues that are most important are a priority, and that the people who are in those positions, making decisions, look like you and me,” he said. 

Updated: 4:58 p.m.