Kweisi Mfume

Kweisi Mfume became president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1996.

Prior to that, he was a member of Congress, representing Maryland's 7th congressional district for ten years.  There, he served on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and held the ranking democratic seat on the General Oversight and Investigations
subcommittee. He also served as a member of the Committee on Education and as a senior member of the Small Business Committee.

Mfume served two years as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and later served as the Caucus' Chair of the Task Force to Preserve Affirmative Action. During his last
term in Congress, he was appointed to be vice chair for communications in the House Democratic Caucus.

Mfume worked 13 years in talk radio before winning a seat on the Baltimore City Council in 1979.

He has a master degree from Johns Hopkins University, and graduated magna cum laude from Morgan State University in 1976.  He later returned as an adjunct professor and currently is on the Board of Regents. 

He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorate degrees and wrote the best selling autobiography entitled "No Free Ride."