The current president of the largest organization dedicated to resolving civil rights issues has announced his resignation from the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Benjamin Jealous, who has spent the past five years dedicating his time to the advancement of civil rights issues, states that he is stepping down from his position so that he will be able to spend more time with his family, including his two small children. Jealous explained that the incredibly long trips he had to spend away from his family due to his time working with the organization are the cause of his resignation.
Since the organization’s inception in 1909, the NAACP has been widely known and recognized due to its involvement in a multitude of high profile civil rights cases. Most recently is the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, which caused Benjamin Jealous to speak out about the problems he saw in the Sanford police department’s handling of the case. Subsequently, the case resulted in the NAACP’s push for the implementation of Trayvon’s Law, which is designed so as to prevent similar events from occurring in the future. Jealous also spent much of his time as president of the organization working to create reforms to the extremely harsh voter-id laws which were present in many states.
Roslyn Brock, a board chairman for the NAACP, stated that there has yet to be a replacement chosen for Benjamin Jealous but that he will continue on in his position until late December of this year.