Take a Lesson, 2nd Edition

16Janai Nelson

President and Director Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (Incoming)

“Our right to vote is preservative of every other right that we hold dear and to the extent that it is being used as a political football, it is threatening to undermine the safety and national security of our country.”

So said Janai Nelson, a favorite guest on Meet the Press and any show seeking to offer clarity and context to the new urgency around the ages‐old civil rights battles that the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) has been fighting for more than 80 years. At a time when it is unclear where our democracy will go next, Nelson insists that what is clear is that LDF will remain steadfast in helping to inform and be an architect of that democracy.

Nelson, 50, can't remember a time when she wasn't deeply incensed by racial injustice and obsessed with fighting to end it. Regularly called upon to be the face and voice of the LDF, this UCLA‐trained lawyer is ultra‐composed, fluent, and fierce in her ability to articulate the full sweep of civil rights threats that keep the LDF on a state of constant alert, intent on the strategies required to combat them.

Like her esteemed predecessors, including LDF founding leader Thurgood Marshall and Elaine Jones, who hired her, Nelson is ever mindful that at the core of every issue she tackles, no matter how large or political or seemingly ...