Derrick Johnson
Derrick Johnson serves as President and CEO of the NAACP. President Johnson served as vice chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors, as well as state president for the Mississippi State Conference NAACP. Born in Detroit, Mr. Johnson attended Tougaloo College, and received his JD from the South Texas College of Law. Mr. Johnson had fellowships with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the George Washington University School of Political Management, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has served as an annual guest lecturer at Harvard Law School, lending his expertise to Professor Lani Guinier’s course on social movements, and as an adjunct professor at Tougaloo College.
Presentations from Facing Race 2020
Forging A Just, Multiracial Democracy Through Cross Racial Movement Building Part 2
American demographics are changing. By 2050, the U.S. population will become predominantly people of color. Even today, we see the importance of building Dr. King’s “Beloved Community.” Toward this end, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation has brought nine leading national racial justice organizations into community with each other, a cross-racial coalition collectively known as the Racial Equity Anchor Institutions (the “Anchors”). They are: Advancement Project, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, Demos, Faith in Action, NAACP, National Congress of American Indians, National Urban League, Race Forward, and UnidosUS. This session will feature the Anchor organization principals discussing the nature and value of their joint work. It will share how they have learned to work together (which hasn’t always been easy or smooth), and the promising ways they are collaborating to ensure a robust, inclusive democracy, leading to the Beloved Community. By creating multi-racial messaging campaigns, the Anchors have advanced an empowering vision of common purpose and destiny. Overcoming the greatest challenges our nation faces depends on such collaboration, healing, learning, and growing together. The Anchors’ joint work has empowered their shared racial equity priorities, while also cultivating stronger multi-racial coalitions at the local level. Session attendees will learn about the benefits of strategic trust building and structured collaboration, key research findings about communities of color, effective strategies for increasing turnout in elections, responding to contested elections and Census participation, and insightful perspectives on how and why to grow multi-racial movements nationally and locally.
Speakers: Sabeel Rahman, Marc Morial, Derrick Johnson, Judith Browne Dianis