Moving, motivating, informative and insightful, Brooks brings both a proud personal heritage and a thought-provoking vision to the podium. Brooks has picked up the mantle of the powerful orators that have influenced him, including Dr. Martin Luther King. He has actively embraced Black Lives Matter within the evolving continuum of civil rights activism. His stirring keynotes inspire audiences to broaden their perspectives, expand their definition of inclusion and diversity, eliminate inequality and honor the history and ever-evolving mission of the civil and human rights movement.

Ferguson. Staten Island. North Charleston. Cleveland. Cornell Brooks has traveled the nation, led a 40-day march from Selma to Washington, D.C. and continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with those advocating for justice and change.

More About Cornell William Brooks

Cornell William Brooks is Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also Director of the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at the School’s Center for Public Leadership, and Visiting Professor of the Practice of Prophetic Religion and Public Leadership at Harvard Divinity School. Brooks is the former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights attorney, and an ordained minister.

Under his leadership, the Trotter Collaborative supported several statewide and national campaigns led by social justice organizations that have, among other things, advanced voting rights, transformed criminal legal systems, and spearheaded reparations research and advocacy for Black Americans. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the Trotter Collaborative partnered with eight cities across the United States and the United Kingdom to transform public safety policies and practices. The Trotter Collaborative also strategized with two governors to produce race-equitable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Prof. Brooks received the annual Innovations in Teaching Award from Harvard Kennedy School for his cutting-edge classroom pedagogy.

Brooks was most recently visiting professor of social ethics, law, and justice movements at Boston University’s School of Law and School of Theology. He was a visiting fellow and director of the Campaign and Advocacy Program at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in 2017. Brooks served as the 18th president of the NAACP from 2014 to 2017. Under his leadership, the NAACP secured 12 significant legal victories, including laying the groundwork for the first statewide legal challenge to prison-based gerrymandering. He also reinvigorated the activist social justice heritage of the NAACP, dramatically increasing membership, particularly online and among millennials. Among the many demonstrations from Ferguson to Flint during his tenure, he conceived and led “America’s Journey for Justice” march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C., over 40 days and 1000 miles.

Prior to leading the NAACP, Brooks was president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, where he led the passage of pioneering criminal justice reform and housing legislation, six bills in less than five years. He also served as senior counsel and acting director of the Office of Communications Business Opportunities at the Federal Communications Commission, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, and a trial attorney at both the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the U.S. Department of Justice. While serving at the U.S. Department of Justice, Prof. Brooks secured a record setting race discrimination settlement and filed the first government fair housing case against a nursing home. Brooks served as judicial clerk for the Chief Judge Sam J. Ervin, III, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Brooks holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and member of the Yale Law and Policy Review, and a Master of Divinity from Boston University’s School of Theology, where he was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar. He also holds a B.A. from Jackson State University. He is a fourth-generation ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.