New NAACP Directors to Strengthen Work in Justice, Education, and Health
The NAACP is pleased to welcome three new directors to our organization's strategy team. The Strategy Office is growing to strengthen the NAACP's ability to tackle key issues impacting the Black community. In recent weeks, the NAACP added well-known, trusted experts to our roster to lead our strategy.
Dr. Jamie R. Riley joins the Association as Director, Race and Justice. Dr. Riley has worked as a racial justice and social change agent in higher education and/or non-profit administration for the past 15 years. As a published researcher, he is a critical race theorist and investigates the systemic role of race and racism within American culture, systems, and institutions.
Previously, he led his own diversity and strategic planning consulting company, Engaging U, LLC, and served as the Director of Racial Equity for the Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP), a national anti-poverty policy non-profit in Washington, DC. Within his role at CLASP, Dr. Riley leads organizational strategies focused on infusing racial equity within all external policy and advocacy efforts.
Dr. Ivory A. Toldson will serve as Director, Education Innovation and Research. Dr. Toldson was dubbed a leader "who could conceivably navigate the path to the White House" by The Washington Post, one of "30 leaders in the fight for Black men," by Newsweek Magazine, and the "Problem Solver" by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.
Dr. Toldson served as the president and CEO of the QEM Network, professor of counseling psychology at Howard University, and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Negro Education. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to devise national strategies to sustain and expand federal support to HBCUs as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (WHIHBCUs). Throughout his career, Dr. Toldson also served as a senior research analyst for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) and contributing education editor for The Root, where he debunked some of the most pervasive myths about African-Americans in his Show Me the Numbers column.
Christy Ross will join us as Director, Health and Wellbeing. Mrs. Ross has over 18 years in both the clinical healthcare and public health sectors. She has held key leadership positions with local institutions including the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (Charity Hospital), Tulane HCA Hospital, Louisiana Public Health Institute and Metropolitan Human Services District. Mrs. Ross has also served as an adjunct instructor at Dillard University in the School of Public Health. She most recently served as Senior Vice President, Grants, with Baptist Community Ministries, a health conversion foundation serving the Greater New Orleans region.
Mrs. Ross is a 2018 Terrance Keenan Institute (Grantmakers in Health) Fellow and a 2017 graduate of the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute. She sits on the board of Volunteers of America Southeast Louisiana and the community advisory board of LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health.
Over the coming months, these directors will begin to develop our strategies to strengthen civil rights within their issue areas. We are pleased to welcome them to the team and excited for their leadership and the path forward.
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About NAACP:
Founded in 1909 in response to the ongoing violence against Black people around the country, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is the largest and most pre-eminent civil rights organization in the nation. We have over 2,200 units and branches across the nation, along with well over 2M activists. Our mission is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.
NOTE: The Legal Defense Fund – also referred to as the NAACP-LDF was founded in 1940 as a part of the NAACP, but separated in 1957 to become a completely separate entity. It is recognized as the nation's first civil and human rights law organization and shares our commitment to equal rights.