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.
