National NAACP president to speak at McDaniel

National NAACP president Cornell William Brooks speaks at McDaniel College on “Unless Black Lives Matter, All Lives Can’t Matter” on Oct. 24 at 7:15 p.m. in Baker Memorial Chapel.

The hour-long event, including questions from the audience, is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

A Methodist minister, Brooks has served as the president and CEO of the NAACP since 2014. As the 18th president of the NAACP, he has united groups as diverse as the AFL-CIO, Sierra Club and National LGBTQ Task Force. He also led a 40-day march from Selma, Ala., to Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act to bring attention to issues, including economic inequality, education reform, criminal justice reform and voting rights. 

Brooks has traveled the nation advocating for justice and change. He has spoken following high-profile incidents involving unarmed black men from Michael Brown to Terence Crutcher and has actively embraced Black Lives Matter within the evolving continuum of civil rights activism. 

He calls on everyone to promote the cause of justice and join a multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-generational movement that welcomes people from all sexual orientations and walks of life. 

“It can’t just be the righteous few,” he said. “There’s got to be an ever-growing many that’s not just saying what’s wrong, but what can be made right.”

He previously served as president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. A graduate of Yale Law School, he has also worked as a civil rights attorney and a social justice advocate. Visit http://www.naacp.org/search/?q=cornell-william-brooks for more information.