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On The Record

Ben Jealous: "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free"

By Sheilah Kast,
Melissa Gerr
Published March 20, 2023 at 12:25 PM EDT
Ben Todd Jealous, former president of the NAACP and a 2018 Democratic candidate for Maryland governor, is one of the nation's leading civil rights activists. He's also an educator, business investor and author, and in November 2022, he became the executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's oldest and most influential environmental organizations. (photo credit Christopher Jason Studios/cover art courtesy Harper Collins)
Christopher Jason Studios/cover art courtesy Harper Collins
Ben Todd Jealous, former president of the NAACP and a 2018 Democratic candidate for Maryland governor, is one of the nation's leading civil rights activists. He's also an educator, business investor and author, and in November 2022, he became the executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's oldest and most influential environmental organizations.

Ben Jealous is former president of the NAACP and a former candidate for governor of Maryland in 2018. He was born and grew up in California because his African-American mother and white father left Baltimore after they married. Interracial marriage was not legal in Maryland until 1967.

Many of the stories Jealous tells in his latest book, including the summers he spent with his maternal grandparents in West Baltimore, are rooted in Maryland. The book is called "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing."

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Sheilah Kast
Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
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Melissa Gerr
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'
See stories by Melissa Gerr