Ben Jealous is the executive director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. Previously, Ben led the NAACP from 2008 to 2013 as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. From 2020 to 2022, he was president of People for the American Way.

He is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Never Forget Our People Were Always Free. The son of a white New England outdoorsman and a Black mother who had to leave Maryland because interracial marriage was illegal in her state at that time, Ben has dedicated his life to progressive social change.