Please join us as Benjamin Todd Jealous, former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), delivers the keynote presentation for "The [in]Justice System," a series focused on the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States.

Jealous is currently a Partner at Kapor Capital, where he invests in seed-stage startup companies that use technology to solve touch social problems such as making poverty less expensive, high-quality education more accessible, and living wage jobs more prevalent. An internationally renowned civil and human rights leader, Jealous works at the intersection of technology and social impact.

Between 2008 and 2013, Jealous served as the president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Under his leadership, the NAACP grew to be the largest civil rights organization online and on mobile devices, as well as in the streets. While he was at the helm, the NAACP experienced its first multi-year membership growth in 20 years. It became the largest community-based nonpartisan voter registration operation in the country, and nearly doubled its revenues.

A builder of robust coalitions, Jealous’ leadership at the NAACP included enlisting environmental organizations into the fight to protect voting rights, bringing multiple LGBT organizations to the front line of the fight against racial profiling, and convincing well-known conservatives to join the NAACP in challenging mass incarceration. Jealous also played a critical role in successful state and local movements to ban the death penalty, outlaw racial profiling, defend voting rights, secure marriage equality, and free multiple wrongfully incarcerated people.

Prior to leading the NAACP, Jealous spent 15 years serving as a journalist and community organizer. While at Mississippi’s <i>Jackson Advocate</i> newspaper, his investigations were credited with exposing corruption at a state penitentiary and proving the innocence of a black farmer who was being framed for arson. At Amnesty International, he provided leadership for successful efforts to outlaw prison rape, expose the increasing trend of children being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and draw attention to expanded racial profiling in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In 2007, he co-founded VoteHope, a 10 million dollar independent expenditure operation that helped then Senator Obama win several early presidential primary states.

Jealous currently serves on the Board of Directors of the tech firm Pigeonly, which helps incarcerated men and women stay in contact with their families and society through low-cost, cutting-edge voice- and image-sharing technology. He is an advisor to both WorkAmerica, a social impact startup that helps unemployed Americans embark on well-paying technical careers, and PayNearMe, a startup that helps people who do not have credit cards access to online economy. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Level Playing Field Institute, Rosenberg Foundation, and Southern Elections Fund.

A Rhodes Scholar, Jealous has been named to the 40 under 40 lists of both Forbes and Time magazines. In 2013, he was #1 on TheRoot.com list of black leaders under 45.

<b>About the [in]Justice System Series</b>

UC Berkeley's Human Rights Program and the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law, with generous support from the Townsend Center for the Humanities and Social Science Matrix, are pleased to present a 2015-16 event series focused on California prisons. This series examines conditions, policies, and prospects for change within a national and international context. Speakers include scholars, advocates, international practitioners, and people who were formerly incarcerated.