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I’ve attended Brock’s Leadership 500 summits and it’s an impressive event because Brock helps groom tomorrow’s leaders as she continues to bring young black professionals with fresh ideas to the NAACP.

So today, it’s time for the NAACP’s 64-person board to hire its first woman president since the NAACP was founded in 1909.

“There are several stellar black women leaders who could lead the NAACP in a new direction,” according to Ebony.

The magazine listed Stefanie Brown James, a former national field director and youth and college director of the NAACP and the director of African-American voting for the Obama 2012 campaign;  Aisha Moodie-Mills, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Maya Wiley, President of the Center for Social Inclusion; Sherrilyn Ifill, president and counsel-director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; and former Bennett College president Julianne Malveaux.

“The NAACP can send a great signal that a change has come by choosing an African American woman to head the organization,” Ebony said.

“That no woman in more than a century has had the opportunity is shameful. Moreover, it reflects a continued distrust of female race leaders,” the magazine added. “Despite the fact that black women are one of the most politically engaged demographics, particularly regarding racial issues, having disproportionately outvoted all other demographics in the 2008 presidential campaign, there is still a strident distrust of nlack women running movements.”

Meanwhile, Jealous said he has no choice but to resign: He made a promise to his seven-year-old daughter that he would leave the NAACP after five years – and he plans to keep his word.

“Truly we were surprised,” Brock told USA Today. “We’re disappointed that he’s leaving at this time. He’s five years in and we were expecting him to be with us seven years, based on our agreement with him.”

Perhaps Brock will take up the mantle and, as president, lead the NAACP into the future.

Brock has spent nearly 30 years working in the trenches for the NAACP. She deserves serious consideration for the civil rights organization’s top job — if she wants it.

(Photo: AP)

COMMENTARY: After 104 Years, It’s Time For a Woman to Lead NAACP  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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