WADE HENDERSON

This is a tip of my hat to Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who is a new addition to the Non-Profit Times’ “11th Annual Power and Influence Top 50” list, which celebrates the sector’s leaders.

Wade and I served on an affirmative action coalition following the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Bakke v. Board of Regents when he was with the Council on Legal Education Opportunity. Now, under his leadership the LCCR membership has grown to nearly 200 national organizations. Wade is one of the nation’s most effective defenders of federal affirmative action policy, one of the strongest advocates for reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act and passage of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, one of the leaders in educating people facing foreclosure and one of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. In receiving this recognition he follows in the footsteps of noted civil rights leaders Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center(2001) and Marian Wright Edelman (1998, 2001) of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Congratulations, Wade!