Rhodes Scholar Named to Head the NAACP

This past Friday the executive board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People voted 34 to 21 to name Benjamin Todd Jealous as the organization’s new president. Jealous, who was supported by NAACP chair Julian Bond, was the only finalist presented to the board by the presidential search committee.

Jealous, a native of Monterey, California, is 35 years old. He is a graduate of Columbia University and earned a master’s degree at Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Most recently he has served as president of the Rosenberg Foundation in California. Previously he was director of the Human Rights Program at Amnesty International and also served as executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of 200 black-owned publications.