grassroots activists to be the "Godfather of the post-modern environmental justice movement" that has steadily grown throughout the nation and world since the early 1980s. National Council of Churches In 1988, Dr. Chavis was elected Vice President of the National Council of Churches. Dr. Chavis also served as chairman of its Prophetic Justice unit as a Minister of the United Church of Christ. In 2013, Dr. Chavis began writing weekly columns for the National Newspaper Association. His columns both insightful and educational, have been published in the country's leading minority newspapers, such as The AFRO. Theologically, Chavis has worked for decades on identifying the common points of unity between the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today, Chavis continues to work on ecumenical and interfaith matters across the United States and throughout the world. NAACP In 1993, Dr. Chavis was selected as the Executive Director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the youngest to hold this office. Dr. Chavis first joined the organization at the age of twelve as a youth leader of the Granville County, North Carolina NAACP Branch. Chavis traveled to a Los Angeles, CA housing project to "get to the heart of the issue," stating that in economically deprived areas, youth often go from childhood to adulthood with no adolescence because of the economic demands. On August 28, 1993, NAACP Chairman William Gibson, Executive Director Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., Coretta Scott King, William Fauntroy, and AFL-CIO's Lane Kirkland joined together to organize the 30th Anniversary March on Washington for Economic Democracy. In 1993, President Clinton named Dr. Chavis to the twenty-five-member President's Council on Sustainable Development to help develop U.S. policies that would encourage economic growth, job creation, and environmental protection. The NAACP in 1993 received a $2 million commitment from the estate of the late Reginald F. Lewis to establish the NAACP Reginald F. Lewis Memorial Endowment. Dr. Chavis spoke on the PBS series Earthkeeping. He said that "environmental racism" was a life-and-death issue and noted the work of the NAACP to end it. Dr. Chavis said that often people of color were excluded from decisions on public policy. The NAACP organized Branches to speak out on the issue and advocated for reform of the Superfund legislation. In 1994, Dr. Chavis set the NAACP's focus on economic empowerment to ensure a strong economic infrastructure for the