Troop 76 was chartered July 18, 1928, under the sponsorship of Fifth Street Baptist Church, which was then located at Fifth and Jackson Streets. Rev. Charles S. Morris was pastor. Lorenzo C. White, lawyer and field secretary of the Negro Organization Society, was the first Scoutmaster. White had previous community experience as a trustee and deacon of his church; in military service, he had achieved the rank of second lieutenant in the infantry. Edward M. Drummond was assistant Scoutmaster at the time of original organization. Roscoe C. Mitchell -- who wrote for The Richmond Planet and in the "colored section" of other local newspapers -- was chairman of a troop committee that included insurance agent R. W. Moss and messenger Isaiah Taylor.

Troop 76 met at church on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M. Thirteen boys, aged 12 through 15, were enrolled at the level of Tenderfoot. Youths from the Navy Hill area of Richmond had William Robinson, a World War I veteran, as their second Scoutmaster. The next leader of the troop was Isaiah Taylor, who has been praised as a man well steeped in the principles and practices of Scouting. Both Robinson and Taylor were deacons at Fifth Street. Howard Vaughan, Edward Anderson, Wilkie Bowman and Henry Whittle followed as Scoutmasters.

Calvin Carter remembers a Scoutmaster named Mr. Dudley when he was a Boy Scout in Troop 76 in the early 1930s. "Dudley was a good Scoutmaster. He was a fine man and everybody loved his whole family. They were good workers in the church and Dudley ran the troop beautifully. One thing I learned was that the type of leader you had is what attracted the boys' attention. Some Scoutmasters would attract boys to the troop, others run them away," says Carter, who became Scoutmaster in the '50s.

According to Elmore Smith, Troop 76 was the first Negro troop to receive a citation for fifty years of continuous operation. For more than thirty years, Elmore Smith served as a Committeeman for Troop 76.

In 1929, Camp Harrison was a wilderness of rough terrain and pine trees. Negro Boy Scouts found a challenging campsite at this Gum Tree, Virginia, location. There were no organized camp facilities, so the boys had to start from scratch in preparing their own camp grounds. The Scouters slept in U.S. Army tents donated to the troop from other troops in the Council. White Scoutmasters readily lent a hand in helping their brethren get started. Besides material support to Negro Scouters, whites assisted them with expertise on outdoor camping and troop organization. The boys from the city knew nothing of camping, of nature, of living out in the country. Taming the wilds of Camp Harrison taught skills of Scouting that would help them develop into men who could survive anywhere.

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