The NAACP names ex-DOJ civil rights chief Kristen Clarke as its top lawyer

The NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in the U.S., has hired a former Biden Justice Department official to head its legal advocacy work.

Kristen Clarke, who previously led the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, will be the NAACP’s next general counsel, the organization announced on Wednesday.

According to an announcement shared first with The Associated Press, Clarke will oversee the NAACP’s legal strategy and operations, and she will lead its litigation efforts on voter access, gerrymandering and the First Amendment, among other civil rights and social justice issues.

“The NAACP has stood on the front lines of justice for over a century, and I’m deeply honored to join this historic organization at this critical moment in our democracy,” Clarke said in a statement.

“Our communities are under relentless attack — from the ballot box to their wallets — and this moment demands that we use the full weight of the law to promote justice and accountability,” she said.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said Clarke is “the legal mind this moment demands.”

“As we face unprecedented attacks on voting and civil rights, having Kristen Clarke at the helm of our legal operations brings strategic vision, disciplined leadership, and innovative advocacy,” he said in a statement.

The NAACP said Clarke’s appointment shows how it’s mobilizing “legal firepower” to combat Republican efforts to dismantle voting rights protections that date back to the Civil Rights Movement, when Black Americans overcame legal suppression and intimidation, largely in southern states.

The NAACP sued nearly a year ago, arguing that President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to require proof of citizenship for voter registration violated the constitutional rights of states to regulate voting, and discriminated against voters of color. A federal judge blocked that order in June, siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general that also challenged its constitutionality.

Clarke was the first woman and the first Black woman appointed to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Serving from 2021 to 2024, she sought reforms in police departments over abusive practices, including in Memphis after the 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols. She also was part of the DOJ team that prosecuted an avowed white supremacist for hate crimes after a shooting killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York supermarket in 2022.

Before joining the Justice Department, Clarke earned degrees at Harvard University and Columbia Law School, and served as president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which was founded more than 60 years ago to challenge racial segregation.

Since leaving federal service, she has served as a professor at Howard University School of Law, which she will continue to do while working for the NAACP.