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IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
May
17, 2008
Contact:
Richard J. McIntire
(410) 580-5787
rmcintire@naacpnet.org
NAACP CHOOSES BENJAMIN T. JEALOUS
AS NATIONAL PRESIDENT-ELECT
Human rights activist & former black
newspaper editor will become 17th
leader of civil rights group
The NAACP National Board of
Directors is pleased to announce the
selection of Benjamin T. Jealous as
National President-elect. He is the
17th person chosen to
lead the nation’s oldest and largest
civil rights organization in its
99-year history.
Jealous, 35, comes to the NAACP from
the San Francisco-based Rosenberg
Foundation*, where he’s served as
president since 2005.
“Ben Jealous has spent his
professional life working for and
raising money for the very social
justice concerns for which the NAACP
advocates,” said NAACP National
Board of Directors Chairman Julian
Bond. “He is a perfect match. He
is intergenerational and his
presence is a demonstration that the
nearly 100-year old NAACP attracts
the best and brightest. We are
looking forward to a great future
under his leadership.”
Jealous’ career path includes
leadership positions with Amnesty
International, where he directed its
U.S. Domestic Human Rights Program
from 2002 to 2005.
Prior to that, he served as
executive director of the National
Newspaper Publishers Association--a
federation of more than 200 black
community newspapers in 38 states.
He is former managing editor of the
Jackson Advocate, the
oldest black-owned weekly newspaper
in Mississippi that has been a
long-time fierce champion of civil
rights and the disenfranchised.
Jealous was mentored by the
Advocate’s publisher, the
late Charles Tisdale, who was
attacked as a teenager for helping
found a local NAACP unit. The
Jackson Advocate was
torched repeatedly for its
principled stances on civil rights.
As a community organizer on civil
rights lawsuits in the ‘90s, Jealous
worked in Mississippi to gain
equitable funding for the state’s
historically black colleges and
universities. For the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund he organized churches
and residents to fight against the
elimination of obstetric services at
St. Luke’s Women’s Hospital in
Harlem , New York .
Jealous also served as program
director for the National Coalition
to Abolish the Death Penalty. At 14,
he organized his first voter
registration drive.
“As an advocate who has spent his
entire adult life working for civil
and human rights organizations, and
as a black parent raising a young
child in this country, I am
intimately invested in the future
successes of the NAACP,” Jealous
said. “As a fifth-generation member
of the NAACP, I know this mighty
Association’s
fundamentals are strong. I see great
opportunities to increase the
NAACP’s role as a positive force in
the collective life of black people
and our nation. I am humbled and
enthused at the prospects being
afforded me by this experience.”
The California native attended
public and parochial schools in
Monterey County . He holds a
bachelor's degree from Columbia
University and a master's degree in
social policy from Oxford University
where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is
married to constitutional law
professor and former NAACP Legal
Defense Fund litigator Lia Epperson
and is the dedicated father of
Morgan, 2.
Jealous will officially begin his
tenure as president Sept. 1.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the
nation's oldest and largest civil
rights organization. Its members
throughout the United States and the
world are the premier advocates for
civil rights in their communities,
conducting voter mobilization and
monitoring equal opportunity in the
public and private sectors.
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* The Rosenberg Foundation awards
grants designed to improve public
policy regarding the economic
security of working families and the
economic and civic integration of
immigrants and members of
historically disadvantaged
communities in California . |