NAACP

Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of over 250,000 slaves in Texas at the close of the Civil War. The holiday is now celebrated nationwide. The celebration takes its name from June 19, 1865, the day federal troops arrived in Galveston to enforce the  Emancipation Proclamation. Although the Proclamation had taken effect on January 1, 1863, it freed few, if any, slaves at that time.

News of the war’s end did not reach Texas until well after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox . Many speculate that the news was deliberately withheld so that slave owners could bring in one last crop. Others believe that the news was delayed because the messenger traveled by mule while some believe the original messenger was murdered en route. (more…)

Benjamin Todd Jealous

President and CEO

Benjamin Todd Jealous served as President of the Rosenberg Foundation- a private independent institution that supports advocacy efforts to make significant improvements in the lives of California’s working families and recent immigrants. He was the fourth person to hold the position since the Foundation was founded in 1935.

Mr. Jealous was Director of US Human Rights Program at Amnesty International. While there he led its efforts to pass federal legislation against prison rape, rebuild public consensus against racial profiling in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, and expose the widespread sentencing of children to life without the possibility of parole. He is the lead author of the 2004 report Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in the United States, the release of which received coverage by major media outlets in most states and on six continents.

Formerly, Mr. Jealous served as Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)-a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers. While at the NNPA, he rebuilt its 90-year old national news service and spearheaded the creation of a proprietary software system that enabled dozens of local papers to begin publishing online. (more…)