Jackson Free Press

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People named Jackson State University alumnus Cornell William Brooks its next national president in May. The NAACP community will formally introduce Brooks, 53, during the 2014 convention in Las Vegas from July 19-23.

A social justice advocate, Brooks graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science from Jackson State University. While in college, he met his wife Janice. Brooks later received a master of divinity degree from Boston University School of Theology and went on to Yale Law School.

Brooks is the 18th president of the NAACP. A South Carolina native, he is a fourth-generation ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and has fought and advocated for public education, fiscal responsibility, previously incarcerated men and women, and affordable healthcare.

"As long as America continues to be a great, but imperfect nation, there will be a need for the NAACP," Brooks told News One in May.

Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the NAACP board of directors, called Brooks "a pioneering lawyer and civil rights leader."

Before the NAACP appointment, Brooks was the president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. He also served as the executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, a senior counsel for the Federal Communications Commission and a trial attorney for the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

"In our fight to ensure voting rights, economic equality, health equity, and an end to racial discrimination for all people, there is much work to do," Brooks said in a statement in May.