NAACP Board Approves Contract for New President

BALTIMORE - The NAACP board voted to approve a contract with its incoming president, Benjamin Jealous, a 35-year-old foundation executive who becomes the youngest leader in the venerable civil rights organization's 99-year history.

Jealous, a Rhodes Scholar who ran the Southern Poverty Law Center's programs and later a California foundation, was selected in May and takes the helm this month.

He inherits an organization wrestling with its role in a year when a Black man stands one election from the presidency. Membership and donations have sagged, and the group has ceded the spotlight to newer activist voices.

"The NAACP must speak to a generation that organizes on Facebook and watches a Black family campaign for the White House," Jealous said in a recent interview. "Our mission is not finished; our methods must change."

Sen. Barack Obama addressed the NAACP convention in July, telling members that government action must be matched by personal responsibility — a message he has repeated to Black audiences on the trail.

The organization's centennial convention is planned for next year in New York, where it was founded in 1909.

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Associated Press writers contributed to this report.

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