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Ben Jealous | |
|---|---|
 Jealous in 2017 | |
| Executive Director of theSierra Club | |
| In office November 14, 2022 – August 11, 2025 | |
| Preceded by | Michael Brune |
| President and CEO of theNAACP | |
| In office September 1, 2008 – November 1, 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Dennis Courtland Hayes (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Lorraine Miller (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Benjamin Todd Jealous (1973-01-18)January 18, 1973 (age 52) |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | [1][2] |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Thomas Jefferson[3] Peter G. Morgan[3] Edward David Bland[3] |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) St Antony's College, Oxford (MSc) |
Benjamin Todd Jealous (born January 18, 1973) is an American political activist. He served as the president and CEO of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 2008 to 2013.[4]
Jealous was the Democratic nominee in the2018 Maryland gubernatorial election, losing to the incumbent Republican governorLarry Hogan.[5][6]
Jealous then served as president ofPeople for the American Way from 2020 to 2022.[7] In November 2022, he was named executive director of theSierra Club.[8][9] He led the Sierra Club from January 2023 until his termination in August 2025.[10]
Jealous was born in 1973 inPacific Grove, California, and grew up on theMonterey Peninsula. His mother, Ann Jealous (née Todd), is biracial. She worked as a psychotherapist and had grown up inBaltimore. She had participated there in the desegregation ofWestern High School. She is the author, with Caroline Haskell, ofCombined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism (2013). His father, Fred Jealous, who is white, is descended from settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, related to businessmanJoseph B. Sargent, and directly in line to inherit the fortune from the Sargent and Co business. He founded the Breakthrough Men's Community and participated in Baltimore sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters.[11] Jealous's parents met in Baltimore in 1966. At the time, they did not openly date each other in public; when they went to the movies, they took separate paths to adjacent seats to hide their relationship.[12] As an interracial couple, they were prohibited by state law from marrying in Maryland before 1967. They married inWashington, D.C., and returned to live in Baltimore for a time before moving to California in the early-1970s.[13] As a child, Jealous was sent to Baltimore to spend his summers with his maternal grandparents, who lived in theAshburton neighborhood. Jealous graduated fromYork School inMonterey, California in 1990.[14]
Jealous's father was best friends with comedianDave Chappelle's father,William David Chappelle III; as a result, Jealous has been friends with Dave Chappelle since childhood, and the two are god-brothers.[15]
Jealous earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science fromColumbia University. ARhodes Scholar, he later earned a Master of Science in comparative social research fromSt Antony's College, Oxford.
AtColumbia University, Jealous began working as an organizer with theNAACP Legal Defense Fund. As a student, he protested the university's plan to turn theAudubon Ballroom (the site ofMalcolm X's assassination) into a research facility and was suspended. During his suspension, Jealous traveled through the South. During this timeMississippi's three black colleges were slated to be closed because of financial difficulties. Jealous organized with the localNAACP chapter to keep them fully funded and maintain their operations.
While in Mississippi, Jealous began working as a reporter forJackson Advocate, Mississippi's oldest historically black newspaper, under the tutelage of publisher Charles Tisdale. He eventually became its managing editor. His reporting was credited with exposing corruption among high-ranking officials at the state prison inParchman. In addition, he helped acquit a small farmer who had been wrongfully accused of arson. Jealous returned to Columbia in 1997, where he applied for and was awarded aRhodes Scholarship.[16]
After completing his degree at Oxford and returning to the US, Jealous worked as executive director of theNational Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers. During his term, he relocated the organization's editorial office toHoward University in Washington, D.C. He set up an online syndicated news service that shared content with all of the organization's member papers.[citation needed]
After the NNPA, he served as director of the US Human Rights Program atAmnesty International. He focused on issues such as promoting federal legislation against prison rape, racial profiling, and the sentencing of persons tolife without the possibility of parole (LWOP) who are convicted for acts committed as children. (In 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that such sentencing was unconstitutional, and ordered its ruling to be applied to people already in prison.) Jealous is the lead author of the 2004 report "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in the United States."[17]
Jealous was President of the Rosenberg Foundation, a private foundation located in San Francisco, California from 2005 to 2008.
Jealous was elected in 2008 as president and CEO of theNAACP; at age 35, he was the youngest person to serve in that position. He served until late 2013. During his term, Jealous initiated national programs on criminal justice, health,environmental justice andvoting rights, expanded existing programs and opened the NAACP Financial Freedom Center to provide financial education and banking resources.[18]
During his tenure, the NAACP helped register 374,553 voters and mobilize 1.2 million new voters to turn out at the polls for the2012 presidential election. It supported abolition of thedeath penalty in Connecticut andMaryland, endorsedsame-sex marriage, and fought laws it believed were intended for voter suppression in states across the country.
During Jealous's tenure, the number of NAACP's online activists increased from 175,000 to more than 675,000; its donors increased from 16,000 individuals to more than 132,000; and the number of total NAACP activists was 1.7 million.[19][20]
Jealous led the NAACP to work closely with other civil rights, labor and environmental groups. In 2010 the NAACP was one of the conveners of theOne Nation Working Together Rally, which Jealous referred to as "an antidote" to theTea Party.[21] In June 2012, the NAACP led several thousand protesters from different groups to march downNew York City's Fifth Avenue in protest of the NYPD's policy ofstop-and-frisk policing.[22] In 2012 Jealous formed theDemocracy Initiative along with other progressive leaders, to build a national campaign around three goals: getting big money out of politics, supporting voting rights, and reforming broken Senate rules.[23] Finally, in 2013 Jealous gave the keynote address at the A10 Rally for Citizenship, a major rally for immigration reform at theUS Capitol.[24]
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Jealous broadened the NAACP's alliances in 2011 at theNational Press Club when a conservative coalition of criminal justice reform advocates endorsed an NAACP report authored by Jealous. In the report, Jealous highlights the adverse effects ofover-incarceration of youth on society and the case for increasing public funding for education.[25] In Texas later that year, the NAACP worked with leaders of the Tea Party to pass a dozen criminal justice reform measures, leading to the first scheduled prison closure in state history.[26] Similarly, in 2013, the NAACP worked closely with Virginia GovernorBob McDonnell to pass bipartisan voting rights reform that gave former offenders the chance to vote after they served the terms of their sentence.[27]
Upon announcing his resignation in 2013, Jealous was praised by activists for his coalition-building efforts.[28][29]
Jealous was noted for reviving and building the resources of the NAACP. According toThe Chronicle of Philanthropy, he was:
...credited with infusing the organization, once seen as graying and vulnerable, with energy, modernity... On his watch over the past five years, the group doubled its budget and national staff, thanks to sometimes explosive growth in fundraising. It shook off years of scandal and torpor, racked up victories in city halls and statehouses, and registered hundreds of thousands of voters. Now, as Mr. Jealous, 40, this week announces his resignation... he leaves a road map for reinvigorating nonprofit advocacy.[30]
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On May 31, 2017, Jealous announced his candidacy for governor of Maryland in the2018 election, then held byLarry Hogan (R).[31] His running mate wasSusan Turnbull.
Many labor and progressive groups issued early endorsements of Jealous, including theAmerican Postal Workers Union (APWU-Maryland),Communications Workers of America (CWA),National Nurses United, the Maryland State Education Association, theService Employees International Union (SEIU),UNITE-HERE,Democracy for America,Friends of the Earth Action, the Maryland Working Families Party,Our Revolution and Progressive Maryland.
Jealous received endorsements from SenatorsBernie Sanders,Cory Booker, andKamala Harris, as well as longtime friend, comedianDave Chappelle.[32]
The Democratic primary was held on June 26, 2018. Despite trailing in polling in the months prior to the primary, Jealous and Turnbull won the primary with 40% of the vote in a nine-candidate field, 10% ahead of the second place duo.[33]
Jealous ran on a platform that includedfree college tuition,legalized marijuana,universal healthcare, and a $15minimum wage for Marylanders.[34][35] His views were described by an analyst forCirca News asdemocratic socialist.[36] However, Jealous disputed this characterization. On August 8, 2018, when questioned by a reporter about whether he considered himself a socialist, Jealous referred to himself as a "venture capitalist."[37] When the reporter asked a second time whether he was a socialist, he responded, "Are you fucking kidding me?"[38]
In October 2018, Jealous confirmed toWashington Jewish Week that he would "vow to defend" the Executive Order by Hogan related to banning companies from working with the state who boycott the Israeli Occupation and/or settlements.[39] This order is very similar to one the ACLU successfully challenged into suspension in Arizona as unconstitutional.[40] Jealous's campaign added that if the ACLU was successful in suspending the Maryland order, he would "bring leaders in the Jewish community and the Maryland-Israel Development Center together ...to figure out if there's a constitutional way to discourage theBDS movement in Maryland."[39]
The general election was held on November 6, 2018, and Jealous lost the election to the incumbent governor, Hogan by a wide margin of 11.9%.[6]
In 2014, Jealous became a senior partner at Kapor Capital. He also joined theCenter for American Progress as a senior fellow.[41][42]
As of 2025[update], Jealous is acontributing editor forThe Daytona Times.[43]
Jealous is aprogressive Democrat. He endorsedBernie Sanders in his2016 campaign for U.S. president,[44][45] then supportedHillary Clinton after she became the Democratic nominee.[46]
Ben Jealous was appointed executive director of theSierra Club in 2022, following the departure ofMichael Brune, during a period when the environmental organization had no permanent leadership.[47] Jealous’s tenure has been marked by significant internal strife, including repeated restructures[48] and layoffs that sparked tension with staff, unions, and stakeholders.[49] Allegations of unfair labor practices and union-busting were filed against both Jealous and the Sierra Club, contributing to growing discontent within the organization.[50] In the spring of 2024, Progressive Workers Union, which represents over 50% of Sierra Club staff, conducted a vote of no confidence in Jealous’s leadership.[51]
In April 2025,Robert D. Bullard publicly requested that the Sierra Club remove his name from its Robert Bullard Environmental Justice Award, citing unmet promises and a failure to protect the predominantly Black Shiloh community.[52] His statement intensified criticism of Jealous's leadership, after Jealous was reported to have referred to Bullard and community members as "snakes" in response to public criticism.[53] Bullard subsequently called for a vote of no confidence in Jealous. Multiple no-confidence votes from staff, volunteers, and chapters further underscored organizational unrest.[54] In July 2025, Jealous took a leave of absence from his role at the Sierra Club.[55]
In August 2025, Jealous was removed from his position as executive director following a unanimous vote by the organization's board of directors.[56] The decision was a culmination of internal disputes and allegations regarding Jealous's leadership and conduct.[57]
The primary allegation against Jealous centered around his behavior towards staff and his perceived lack of transparency in handling organizational matters. Reports surfaced that Jealous exhibited a pattern of jealousy and undermining of colleagues, particularly in relation to the Sierra Club's senior leadership and key partners. These actions were described as fostering a toxic work environment that diminished the organization's ability to work effectively.[58]
An independent investigation was launched following multiple complaints, which concluded that Jealous's leadership style had led to growing tensions within the organization. The investigation also uncovered claims that Jealous had publicly disparaged colleagues and worked to consolidate power in a way that alienated other stakeholders. In September 2025, reports also revealed that Jealous was subject to a sexual harassment and bullying complaint.[59]
Jealous has been avegetarian since 1978.[60] Jealous was married toLia Epperson, an NAACP lawyer and law professor atAmerican University Washington College of Law in July 2002.[1] Epperson is the sister of CNBC correspondentSharon Epperson.[61] Jealous and Epperson have two children.[62] The couple divorced in 2015.[2] He is a resident ofAlameda, California.[63]
Jealous has earned the following awards and honors for his activism:
Ben Jealous, the Democratic candidate for governor, supports increasing the minimum wage to $15.
{{cite web}}:|last2= has generic name (help){{cite web}}:|last= has generic name (help)| Non-profit organization positions | ||
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| Preceded by Dennis Courtland Hayes Acting | President and CEO of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People 2008–2013 | Succeeded by Lorraine Miller Acting |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Maryland 2018 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
