NAACP President Benjamin Jealous Steps Down After 5 Years

Benjamin Jealous- President and CEO of the NAACP

Words by Alyson Robinson

President and CEO of the NAACP, Benjamin Jealous, has announced his resignation today. Jealous told USA Today in an interview on Sunday that he would be stepping down at the end of 2013.

In 2008, Jealous was appointed to the position at the age of 35 and was established as the youngest person to fill that spot in the civil rights organization’s history. He is praised as an effective leader who made a vast improvement on the NAACP’s finances and donor base from 16,000 people per year to more than 132,000, and its online activists from 175,000 to more than 675,000 over the past five years.

Jealous is taking steps to occupy possibly a teaching position in the Washington D.C. area.

“Beginning next year, I look forward to pursuing opportunities in academia to train the next generation of leaders and, of course, spending a lot more time with my young family,” Jealous said in a statement from the NAACP.

A new president for the NAACP has not yet been announced, but Jealous made hints of a major change.

“I’m the 17th president of the NAACP and the 17th man. I do expect that the next president of the NAACP will be different in some way,” he said to USA Today.

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