As for ailing finances, Jealous announced at the Casey Foundation that he's already secured millions this summer, with promises for more. And he is hiring about 20 additional staffers.
Asked the question on the minds of many of those in attendance - whether the NAACP will move its headquarters from Baltimore to Washington - Jealous said that's still up in the air and would take millions of dollars and years to happen.
Jealous and his wife, Lia Epperson Jealous, and their 2 1/2 -year-old daughter, Morgan, are renting in Washington because his wife, a civil rights attorney who teaches law, will likely teach there. They are house hunting between the two cities, he said. "I would welcome a conversation with the mayor," he says, about keeping the NAACP in Baltimore.
In the meantime, he's just happy to be here, in the city where his parents met as elementary schoolteachers, and the city that was the site of some of his earliest summers with his grandmother.
"It's great to be back home," he says at the end of his remarks.
And it's back to the receiving line.
Sumathi Reddy is a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun.
Benjamin T. Jealous
Age: 35
Birthplace: Carmel, Calif.
Academics: B.S. in political science, Columbia University, New York; Rhodes scholarship; M.Sc. in comparative social research, Oxford University, Oxford, England.
Professional: President, San Francisco-based Rosenberg Foundation; director, U.S. human rights program, Amnesty International; executive director, National Newspaper Publishers Assn.; community organizer, NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Harlem, New York.
Personal: Spouse, Lia Epperson Jealous, and daughter, Morgan.
