The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center is pleased to announce they keynote speaker for the Fit for a King 2014 Summit: Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Jealous will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s life by exploring the question: “Are We Winning the Struggle to End Segregation?”

Benjamin Todd Jealous is the current president and CEO of the NAACP. The youngest president in its history, he began his career at age 18 opening mail at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Jealous has been a leader of successful state and local movements to ban the death penalty, outlaw racial profiling, defend voting rights, secure marriage equality, and free multiple wrongfully incarcerated people. A builder of robust coalitions, Jealous’ leadership at the NAACP included bringing environmentalist organizations into the fight to protect voting rights, and convincing well-known conservatives to join the NAACP in championing the end of mass incarceration.

In 2014, 46 years after the passing of the Fair Housing Act, residential segregation is still a stark reality in our nation’s towns and cities. Segregation is more than geographical division by race- it is connected to critical quality of life indicators, including income, health, education, and life expectancy. The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center’s 7th annual Fit For a King Housing Summit, “Are We Winning the Struggle to End Segregation?” will investigate the progress our country has made towards integration, the consequences of continued segregation on our communities, and how federal law and policy have been used to perpetuate segregation both historically and today. The conference will close with an interactive session about the possibility of integrated neighborhoods, how they can be sustained, and ways to advance housing choice locally as well as in the upcoming state legislative session.

Please join us and experts from around the country on January 15, 2014 to examine the intersections of residential segregation and environmental justice, gentrification, education, voting rights, and public policy.

Fit for a King 2014 is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Fit for a King 2014 brought to you by:

IBERIABANK

Whitney

Latter & Blum

HRI Properties

First NBC

aos

Bayou Title

Provident Realty

Gulf Coast Housing Partnership

Coats Rose

Talbot Realty

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