- Civil Rights
- Criminal Justice
- Police Accountability
Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way.
Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. During his tenure, he doubled the organization’s budget, grew its online activist base by hundreds of thousands and increased its number of donors eightfold, from 16,000 to 132,000. He also positioned the organization at the forefront of critical social justice issues such as the Trayvon Martin case, the fight against voter ID laws and major protests over the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policies. He pushed for the organization to fight more aggressively for marriage equality, led efforts to register 374, 000 voters and mobilize 1.2 million new voters to the polls, and worked to pass key legislative accomplishments during President Obama’s first term, most notably the Affordable Care Act.
In 2013, the Baltimore Sun named Jealous Marylander of the Year for his work on marriage equality, abolishing the death penalty and passing the DREAM Act. Jealous was the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor of Maryland, and most recently served as a partner at Kapor Capital. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
Ben Jealous's Areas of Expertise
All Posts
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Blog Post | April 1, 2022
Fighting the Corruption of Power
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Blog Post | March 28, 2022
We’re Not Letting Anybody Steal Our Joy
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Blog Post | March 25, 2022
A Note from People For President on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Hearings
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Blog Post | March 24, 2022
NEWSWEEK: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Will Bring Moral Clarity to SCOTUS
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Blog Post | March 17, 2022
Black Americans and the Worldwide Principles of Democracy
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Blog Post | March 11, 2022
From Selma to the Supreme Court, We Are Still Making History
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Blog Post | March 4, 2022
State of the Union: Democracy Needs Defenders
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Blog Post | March 4, 2022
THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY: Right-Wing Lies Against Supreme Court Nominee Must Be Met With Strong Philanthropic Response
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Blog Post | February 25, 2022
Ketanji Brown Jackson Is the Supreme Court Justice We Need Now
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Blog Post | February 11, 2022
Republican Party Makes Dangerous Bow to Trump’s Insurrectionists