Ben Jealous - Never Forget Our People Were Always Free

In person author event
* Tuesday, February 21, 6:00 pm

Ben Jealous, one of America’s modern-day advocates for human rights and justice and the son of a White father and a Black mother, draws on lessons from his life, his family, and his work in a deeply personal and timely new book, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing.

Jealous has devoted his life and career, including his tenure as President of the NAACP, to ending injustice and racism by strengthening the bonds among Americans of all races, creeds, colors, and political ideologies. In his book, Jealous draws inspiring lessons and hope for restoring our country’s strength and unity from stories of his ancestors, both Black and White, as well as his pathbreaking partnerships with conservative leaders.

As Jealous shares, his book’s title was inspired by a truth instilled by his maternal grandmother, Mamie Todd Bland, the family griot. Her belief in the inherent freedom and value of every human being was instilled by her maternal grandfather, Edward David Bland. An African American child enslaved by his White uncle, Edward Bland was a free man at the end of the Civil War and became an itinerant preacher of freedom — economic and political.

Throughout Never Forget Our People Were Always Free, Ben Jealous interweaves vivid anecdotes of family, friends, mentors, colleagues, and strangers who have shaped his life’s mission and his faith in humanity.

Ben Jealous, scholar, journalist, civil rights leader, and philanthropist, has been unanimously selected to lead the Sierra Club as its next Executive Director. He recently served as President and CEO of People For the American Way, and Professor of the Practice, University of Pennsylvania. He was formerly President and CEO of the NAACP, Director of the Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, and Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of REACH: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding. A Rhodes Scholar and a past Democratic nominee for Governor of Maryland, he lives on the Chesapeake Bay.

Ben Jealous photo courtesy of Christopher Jason Studios