Leon Russell | |
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Chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People | |
Assumed office February 18, 2017 | |
Preceded by | Roslyn Brock |
Personal details | |
Born | 1949or1950(age 74–75) |
Leon W. Russell (born 1949/1950) [1] is an African-American civil rights leader and human rights executive. He was elected to succeed Roslyn Brock as chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People board of directors on February 18,2017. [2] [3]
Russell spent nearly four decades as the Director of the Office of Human Rights for Pinellas County in Clearwater,Florida,retiring in 2012. [4] [5] For his contributions to the improvement of equality and equity across the United States,Russell has received numerous civic awards and citations. [6]
Russell has spent over four decades in various leadership capacities with the NAACP. [7] [8] Under his leadership,the NAACP has taken on environmental and climate justice as civil and human rights issues. [9] In 2023,Russell presented Congressman Bennie Thompson with the NAACP Image Award –Chairman's Award. [10] [11] [12] [13] In 2022,Russell presented Samuel L. Jackson with the NAACP Image Award –Chairman's Award. [14] [15] [16] [17] In 2021,He presented Rev. James Lawson with the NAACP Image Award –Chairman's Award. [18] [19] [20] [21] Russell presented the NAACP Image Award –Chairman's Award to congressman John Lewis in 2020. [22] Russell believes in the well-being of America's children,serving on various boards to ensure their rights are protected. [23] He led a campaign,with the assistance of former National presidents of the NAACP,to focus on bringing young adults into the organization to change the mindset of how people view the NAACP. [24] As Chairman of the NAACP National board of directors,Russell is charged with setting policy for the National NAACP President and CEO to implement. He outlined the strategy in 2017. [25] He spent time in Ohio urging young adults to get engaged in the Civil Rights movement. [26]
Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi,who was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers,a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served in World War II,was engaged in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi,end the segregation of public facilities,and expand opportunities for African Americans including the enforcement of voting rights.
The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for an outstanding achievement by an African American. The award was created in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn,chairman of the board of directors of the NAACP. It was first awarded to biologist Ernest E. Just in 1915,and has been given most years thereafter.
James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s,he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960,and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.
John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins,the Freedom Rides,was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966,and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States,in 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where,in an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday,state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.
The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film,television,theatre,music,and literature. The over 40 categories of the Image Awards are voted on by the NAACP members. Honorary awards have also been included,such as the President's Award,the Chairman's Award,the Entertainer of the Year,the Activist of the Year,and the Hall of Fame Award. Beyoncéis the All-Time leading winner with 25 wins as a solo artist.
The NAACP Image Award winners for the Chairman's Award:
Horace Julian Bond was an American social activist,leader of the civil rights movement,politician,professor,and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta,Georgia,during the early 1960s,he helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1971,he co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery,Alabama,and served as its first president for nearly a decade.
Bennie Gordon Thompson is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Mississippi's 2nd congressional district since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party,Thompson served as the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security from 2019 to 2023 and from 2007 to 2011. He was both the first Democrat and the first African American to chair the committee. He is the dean of Mississippi's congressional delegation.
Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her husband Medgar Evers,another civil rights activist. She also served as chairwoman of the NAACP,and published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband's legacy. On January 21,2013,she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.
Leon Howard Sullivan was a Baptist minister,a civil rights leader and social activist focusing on the creation of job training opportunities for African Americans,a longtime General Motors Board Member,and an anti-Apartheid activist. Sullivan died of leukemia in a Scottsdale,Arizona hospital at the age of 78.
Francys Johnson is an American civil rights attorney,pastor and educator. He is in private practice as an attorney in Statesboro,Georgia. He has lectured on constitutional and criminal law,civil rights and race and politics at Savannah State University and Georgia Southern University.
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12,1968,in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages,time and a half overtime,dues check-off,safety measures,and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States,formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois,Mary White Ovington,Moorfield Storey,and Ida B. Wells. Over the years,leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins.
The International Civil Rights Walk of Fame is a historic promenade that honors some of the activists involved in the Civil Rights Movement and other national and global civil rights activists. It was created in 2004,and is located at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. The site is more than just a promenade;it is an outdoor exhibit that showcases,in granite and bronze,the footstep impressions of those honored.
Courtney Michaela "Coco" Jones is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Raised in Lebanon,Tennessee,she began auditioning in Nashville as a child to pursue a career in entertainment. She was first featured on the competition series Radio Disney's Next Big Thing (2010–11),which led to her being cast in other Disney properties such as the film Let It Shine (2012) and the sitcom Good Luck Charlie (2012–13).
William J. Barber II is an American Protestant minister,social activist,professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and founding director of the Center for Public Theology &Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He is the president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign:A National Call for a Moral Revival. He also serves as a member of the national board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and is the chair of its legislative political action committee. From 2006 to 2017,Barber served as president of the NAACP's North Carolina state chapter,the largest in the Southern United States and the second-largest in the United States. He pastored Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro,North Carolina,from 1993 to 2023.
Sherrilyn Ifill is an American lawyer and the Vernon E. Jordan,Jr.,Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University. She is a law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was the Legal Defense Fund's seventh president since Thurgood Marshall founded the organization in 1940. Ifill is a nationally recognized expert on voting rights and judicial selection. In 2021,Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world on its annual Time 100 list.
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The 52nd NAACP Image Awards,presented by the NAACP,honored outstanding representations and achievements of people of color in motion pictures,television,music,and literature during the 2020 calendar year. The ceremony aired on March 27,2021,on BET and simulcast on several of its sister ViacomCBS Networks,with CBS airing the ceremony for the first time. The ceremony was hosted for the eighth time by actor Anthony Anderson. Presentations of untelevised categories were livestreamed between March 22–26,2021 on the ceremony's website.
The 53rd NAACP Image Awards,presented by the NAACP,honored outstanding representations and achievements of people of color in motion pictures,television,music,and literature during the 2021 calendar year. The ceremony aired on February 26,2022,on BET and simulcast on several of its sister Paramount Global Networks. The ceremony was hosted for the ninth time by actor Anthony Anderson. Presentations of untelevised categories were livestreamed on January 18,2022,on the ceremony's website.