The NAACP Saturday announced that Lorraine C. Miller, a member of the national board of directors since 2008, would become interim president and CEO of the 104-year-old organization.
In doing so, she’s the organization’s first interim president and the first woman to fill the president-executive secretary’s role since 1916, a spokesman told The Root, although four women have been chairman of the board and three have held the title of national president. She begins Nov. 1.
Leadership of the search committee to select a new president and CEO was also named, according a release. It will be chaired by the Rev. Theresa Dear of Bartlett, Ill., and the vice chairman is Lamell McMorris of Washington, D.C. Both are members of the NAACP’s national board.
The moves come after NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, who served as the face of the nation’s largest civil rights organization for the past five years, announced plans in September to step down, effective Dec. 31. In a detailed interview with The Root‘s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., he cited a desire to spend time with his family as one of the reasons for his departure.
“Lorraine is a natural fit as interim president of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization,” Jealous said in a prepared statement. “She comes into this position with two decades of experience working for the U.S. House of Representatives and an even longer career in civil rights advocacy and policy. She will have the honor of leading the dynamic staff of this great organization.”
