- 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 | November 30, 2021
USA TODAY: Charlottesville sends message to the hearts of Americans from the heart of the old Confederacy
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Blog Post | November 22, 2021
‘Good Trouble’ Moves the Needle on Voting Rights
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Blog Post | November 19, 2021
Giving Thanks
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Blog Post | November 16, 2021
Investing In American People And Communities
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Blog Post | November 5, 2021
Lesson for Democrats in Virginia Defeat: Give Voters Something to Vote For
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Blog Post | November 1, 2021
Senate Republicans Block This Generation’s Voting Rights Act: Will President Biden Meet the Challenge?
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Blog Post | October 22, 2021
The Far-Right Political Playbook Is a Threat to Our Health, Our Schools, and Our Democracy
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Blog Post | October 14, 2021
A Politician’s Shameless Bigotry
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Blog Post | October 12, 2021
Why I Went to Jail on October 5
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Blog Post | October 1, 2021
Local Governments Can Lead in Public Safety Movement