On Friday, the NAACP will award Van Jones the President’s Award for 2010 at their Image Awards ceremony.
Van Jones has moved quickly through the spotlight as good guy, recognized by Time last May as one of the top 100, to bad guy when he resigned as Obama’s Green Jobs Czar on Labor Day. Last night Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, announced on a CNN special that Jones would receive this prestigious award.
The official notice from the NAACP says Jones embodies the spirit of the NAACP Image Awards — an entrepreneurial spirit that comes with a sense of social responsibility. His plan to retool the American economy by creating millions of new "green collar" jobs is groundbreaking, not only because it opens up a new sector of American industry, but also because it does so in a way that creates jobs and protects the environment.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2010.