Ben Jealous

Benjamin Todd Jealous was born on January 18, 1973, in Pacific Grove, California. His early life was shaped by his parents’ activism; his mother, Ann Jealous, participated in desegregation efforts in Baltimore, and his father, Fred Jealous, was involved in sit-ins. His parents, an interracial couple, met in Baltimore in 1966 before moving to California. Jealous attended York School in Monterey, California, graduating in 1990. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Columbia University and later an Master of Science in comparative social research from St Antony’s College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.

Jealous began his career in activism at Columbia University, organizing with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. During a suspension from Columbia, he worked as a reporter for the “Jackson Advocate”, Mississippi’s oldest historically black newspaper, where his reporting exposed corruption and aided a wrongful arson case. He then served as executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, where he set up an online syndicated news service. Following this, he became director of the US Human Rights Program at Amnesty International, focusing on issues like prison rape and racial profiling. From 2005 to 2008, Jealous was President of the Rosenberg Foundation.

In 2008, at age 35, Jealous became the youngest president and CEO of the NAACP, serving until 2013. During his tenure, the organization registered 374,553 voters and mobilized 1.2 million new voters for the 2012 presidential election. The NAACP also supported the abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut and Maryland, endorsed same-sex marriage, and fought against voter suppression laws. Jealous fostered collaborations with conservative leaders and Republicans, such as in Texas for criminal justice reform, leading to the first scheduled prison closure in state history, and with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on voting rights reform. His leadership led to a significant increase in online activists and donors, revitalizing the organization’s resources.