I !
’ i '
4 - SATURDAY, MAY 31,2008 - THE CAROLINA TIMES
Former news exec, 35, is picked to iead NAACP
By Errin Haines and
Ben Nuckols
BALTIMORE (AP) - The NAACP chose 35-year-old activist and former
news executive Ben Jealous as its president May 17, making him the young
est leader in the 99-year history of the nation’s largest civil rights organiza
tion.
The 64-member board of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People met for eight hours before selecting Jealous in the early
momijjg. He was formally introduced May 17 and will take over as president
in September.
“Em excited,” Jealous told The Associated Press. “I think that it’s a real
affirmation that this organization is willing to invest in the future, to invest in
the ideas and the leadership of the generation that is currently raising black
children in this country.”
Though he is not a politician, minister or civil rights icon. Jealous pro
vides the organization with a young but connected chief familiar with black
leadership and social justice issues.
, He takes the helm as the NAACP’s 17th president Just months before
the organization’s centennial anniversary and as the group looks to boost its
coffers.
; “There are a small number of groups to whom all black people in this
country owe a debt of gratitude, and the NAACP is one of them,” Jealous
said. “There is work that is undone. ... The need continues and our children
continue to be at great risk in this country.”
: Jealous succeeds Bruce Gordon, who resigned abruptly in March 2007.
Gordon left after 19 months, citing clashes with board members over man
agement style and the NAACP’s mission as his reasons for leaving. Dennis
Courtland Hayes had been serving as interim president and chief executive
officer.
; Jealous was bom in Pacific Grove, Calif., and educated at Columbia Uni
versity and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
' He began his professional life in 1991 with the NAACP, where he worked
as a community organizer with the Legal Defense Fund .working on issues of
health care access in Harlem. His family boasts five generations of NAACP
membership.
During the mid 1990s, Jealous was managing editor of the Jackson Advo
cate, Mississippi’s oldest black newspaper.
From 1999 to 2002, Jealous led the country’s largest group of black com
munity newspapers as executive director of the National Newspaper Pub
lishers Association.
Jealous left the Publishers Association for Amnesty International to di
rect its U.S. Human Rights Program, for which he successfully lobbied for
federal legislation against prison rape, public disapproval of racial profiling
after Sept. 11, and exposure of widespread sentencing of children to life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
Since 2005, Jealous has served as president of the Rosenberg Foundation,
a private institution that supports civil and human rights advocacy. His expe
riences caught the attention of the NAACP’s search committee, and Jealous
said mentors encouraged him to take the Job.
“Like all black people in this country, I am deeply grateful for what the
NAACP has accomplished in the 20th century, and I want to make sure it’s
as-strong and as powerful in the 21st century,” he said. “If I thought that I
could help rebuild, if I thought that I could help bring in more fimds and give
direction to the national staff and increase morale, I needed to take it very
seriously, and that’s what I’ve done.”
The NAACP was founded in 1909 by an interracial coalition that battled
segregation and lynching and helped win some of the nation’s biggest civil
rights victories. But in the wake of racial advances, the organization has
struggled financially.
Despite his own successes. Jealous said that blacks in America still have
a hard row to hoe, and that the gains of recent decades have created a false
sense of progress.
“Those of us who are 45 and younger were told, ‘The struggle has been
won. Go out and flourish. Don’t worry about the movement,”’ he said.
Among his plans for the group are strengthening its online presence to
connect with activists, mobilize public opinion and build a database for
tracking racial discrimination and hate crimes; ensuring high voter turnout
among blacks in the November election; pushing an aggressive civil rights
agenda, regardless of the makeup of the Congress or White House; and re
tooling the national office to make it more effective at helping local branches
affect change in their communities.
He said he does not see expect to have the challenges with NAACP lead
ership of which his predecessor complained.
“I was raised in the civil rights movement,” Jealous said. “I don’t see
anything special here that would be a challenge that I haven’t confronted and
dealt effectively with before. These are my people.”
What Jealous lacks in oratorical appeal, he makes up for as an adminis
trator - skills he honed during his tenure with the Publishers Association,
said the Rev. Joseph Lowery. And his foundation experience could help with
todraising - especially as the NAACP looks to raise $100 million in con
junction with its 100th aimiversary in February.
“Ben would be a good administrator and a thorough and detailed kind
of executive,” Lowery said. “He would meticulously follow through on de
tails.”
Lowery said Jealous’ Publishers Association experience also gave him an
edge with national black leadership and maturity - not that Lowery thinks his
age is an issue.
“That’s not young,” Lowery said when told Jealous was 35, pointing out
that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 when he led the Montgomery
bus boycott. “I wouldn’t say he’s too young. He’s an emotionally and intel
lectually mature fellow.”
Jealous said having the energy of a 35-year-old will be an asset to the
organization.
“It means having somebody who is impatient and outraged that race is
still a factor in our society,” he said.
He added that he can attract 25- to 50-year-olds - the missing demograph
ic among most chapters - back to the organization. And he said he is eager to
work with other groups to push his agenda.
“This is the century when white people will become a minority in this
country,” he said. “What that means is right now, we need to have a clear
picture of where we’re headed and work together diligently with Latinos,
Native Americans, Asians and progessive white groups as if our collective
future depends on it. I’m committed to that.”
It’s a tall order that isn’t likely to happen overnight, but Jealous - whose
resume doesn’t reflect a record of longevity - said he’s ready to settle in for
the long haul. He has spent much of his life in California but has roots in
Baltimore, where the NAACP is based. His mother was bom in Baltimore,
and his parents met while teaching at a Junior high school in the city.
“As a black child growing up in this country, there was no higher ambi
tion possible than to lead the NAACP,” he said. “No one should be concerned
about me going anywhere too soon.”
BENJAMIN JEALOUS
Motown/Civil Rights (Continued From I
Errin Haines reported from Atlanta.
On the Net:
NAACP: http://www.naacp.org
Over the ensuing decades, McNair found himself in one civil rights s(
mish after another, not always voluntarily. Many involved struggles fore,
opportunity as a designer/graphic artist, and he lost a lot of Jobs inthel
cess. In fact, McNair Joined Motown only after becoming frustrated wiif
employer who gave him a promotion but refused to give him a pemia»
spot to sit.
McNair is not bitter, however, and has no regrets.
“I feel like I’m blessed to live in America,” he says, “but we waslei
much time on racism. I didn’t let it define me. I accepted it as it wasj
challenged it by doing everything 1 could to prove myself”
In 1990, McNair left Detroit to visit Laurinburg, where his family
owned about 100 acres for close to a century. He decided to stay.
Life became simpler, starting with ajob as an elementary school art lad
er in Rockingham.
In 2003, while visiting First Baptist Church in Wadesboro, he mell
future wife, Donna Ingram. She, too, was at work on a second life, havi
retired as an assistant superintendent with the Durham County schoolsi
become a Pentecostal minister.
The two wed in 2005 and now live on nine acres outside Wadesboro.
Since then, Curtis McNair has become something of a local celeb#
including being invited to display his oil paintings, commercial graphic]
and album covers in a show last month in Wadesboro.
He agreed to speak on opening night and was greeted by a capaeity cin
that was a broad mix of old and young, black and white.
It surprised him, partly because he couldn’t imagine that many pei[|
cared. But it also suggested that maybe. Just maybe, his time at Motown «i
as meaningful as the marches and sit-ins.
Then again, maybe not.
After an hour of talking, McNair agreed to field questions.
“So,” yelled someone from the crowd, “what about Diana Ross?”
McNair couldn’t help but smile.
“What about her?”
You see him on TV. You hear him on radio.
Now meetTavis Smiley!
Host, Tavis Smiley on PBS and The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI
Saturday, May 31
Nationwide On Your Side"" Tour
Sheraton Downtown Raleigh Hotel
421 S. Salisbury Street • Raleigh, NC 72601
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
SCHEDULE
9:00 AM Doors Open
10 AM-1 1am Tavis Smiley LIVE!
11 AM-1 PM Empowerment Sessions
Complimentary Lunch Served
HIGHLIGHTS
• Meet & Greet with Tavis
• Career Opportunities
Wealth Building Strategies