Ben Jealous is the Sierra Club’s new Executive Director who is an experienced civil rights leader, community organizer, coalition builder and social justice activist.
The decision was unanimous from the Board of Directors in November 2022.
In a statement, the board declared: “We're thrilled to welcome Ben to our organization. Ben's passion for the outdoors, commitment to fighting for the environment, his work leading People for the American Way, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), makes him uniquely qualified to lead the Sierra Club at these intersections as our journey continues to create a healthy and sustainable planet for all.
More about his fascinating background may be found here:
https://www.sierraclub.org/meet-ben-jealous
“Folks call him a unifier, peacemaker, collaborator, and coalition builder -- exactly what the Board of Directors decided the Sierra Club community needs right now,” said the club’s president, Ramón Cruz. Plus, “He will be the first person of color to lead the Sierra Club in its 130-year-old existence.”
Early in Ben's life, he spent his time in nature and communities devoted to activism, from growing up in a neighborhood of oceanographers in California to summers spent with his grandparents during the civil rights movement in West Baltimore.
The first protest Ben organized at school was against timber clearcutting. He worked as a journalist exposing "cancer clusters" in rural parts of Mississippi and was the youngest person to serve as president and CEO of the NAACP, which launched its climate justice program under his leadership.
"My parents raised me to understand that the American experiment is both ongoing and fragile,” he said after hearing of the vote, “when planetary preservation is a human rights issue, we all need to consider pivots in our lives. Too many leaders still think that we can only create a growing economy if we sacrifice people, the wild, and even the planet itself.”
“This is a flawed 'either/or' mindset with its roots deep in our nation's history of colonialism.”
As an author, he has a new book being released in January (2023), called “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing.”