Dr. Benjamin Chavis

Governing Board Co-President

President and CEO, Hip-Hop Summit Action Network

When Russell Simmons established the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) to empower the Hip-Hop community to utilize their commanding cultural influence for freedom, justice and equality, he needed someone with a strong mind and commitment to youth, national civil rights experience, political skills, vast spiritual knowledge and an adept human touch to head up the organization. That man was Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, also known as Minister Benjamin Muhammad, who had already proved his mettle by organizing the historic New York Hip-Hop Summit in 2001. That two-day event–“an unprecedented meeting,” according to the Los Angeles Times—found Chavis and Simmons guiding industry hip-hop leaders, artists, and civil rights and political organizations towards an agreement on a series of initiatives and commitments that will affect the artistic and social landscape of American society and the global community, as a whole. One month later, the HSAN was born and Dr. Chavis was named President and CEO.

Chavis comes to the HSAN with a professional history of solid principles, demonstrated courage and immense diversity. A native of Oxford, North Carolina, he holds a number of prestigious degrees: He received a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from University of North Carolina; a Master of Divinity, M.Div., magna cum laude, from Duke University; a Doctor of Ministry, D.Min., from Howard University; and completed course requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, from Union Theological Seminary.

Dr Benjamin Chavis began his career in 1965, as a statewide youth coordinator in NC for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1969, Chavis was appointed Southern Regional Program Director of the 1.7million member United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice (UCC-CRJ) and by 1985 was named the Executive Director and CEO of the UCC-CRJ. In 1988, Dr. Chavis was elected Vice President of the National Council of Churches of the USA. Then in 1993, Dr. Chavis achieved what no other before him had achieved. He became the youngest person ever to be the Executive Director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1995, as National Director of the Million Man March, Dr. Chavis looked straight in the face of the skeptics, and despite tremendous controversy, pulled off arguably one of the largest, most vocal, most effective gatherings of our time. To accomplish that coup, Chavis drew on many years of experience. No stranger to the civil rights struggle, Benjamin Chavis and nine others in 1978 were officially classified “American political prisoners” by Amnesty International as members of the Wilmington, NC Ten. Although Chavis and his teenage codefendants were unjustly imprisoned in NC for most of the 1970’s because of their challenge to racial segregation in the Wilmington public school system, the Wilmington Ten emerged victorious after nearly a ten year international political and legal battle when the 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals overturned their convictions and cleared their names. While in prison, Dr Chavis authored two books: An American Political Prisoner Appeals for Human Rights and Psalms from Prison..

Because of Dr. Chavis’ scientific background, in 1981, he was the first person to coin the term environmental racism: “Racial discrimination in the deliberated targeting of ethnic and minority communities for exposure to toxic and hazardous waste sites and facilities, coupled with the systematic exclusion of minorities in environmental policy making, enforcement, and remediation.” To prove the validity of his definition, Chavis in 1986 conducted, authored and published the landmark national study: Toxic Waste and Race in the United States of America, that statistically revealed the direct correlation between race and the location of toxic waste throughout the United States. Benjamin Chavis is considered by many environmental grassroots activists to be the “father of the post-modern environmental justice movement” that has steadily grown throughout the nation and world since the early 1980’s.

Along the way, Dr. Chavis evolved into a serious journalist and commentator through his nationally syndicated newspaper column and weekly radio program, “Civil Rights Journal” from 1985 to 1993.

On the career track, Chavis became Executive Director and CEO of the National African American Leadership Summit (NAALS) from 1995 to 1997, and was then appointed East Coast Regional Minister of the Nation of Islam and Minister of the historic Mosque Number Seven in Harlem, New York. Subsequently, he was also named as Special Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, a position he still maintains today.

The journey into the Hip-Hop culture actually had its roots for Chavis dating back to 1969 when he was the proprietor and regular “DJ” and “MC” for The Soul Kitchen Disco in his hometown of Oxford, NC. In the 1970’s, Chavis envisioned that there was a direct connection between the urban underground music and the post-civil rights era. During the1980’s, Chavis witnessed the growing popularity of hip-hop with disenfranchised youth entrapped into urban poverty. While serving as a mentor to Sister Souljah, Kevin Powell, Little Rob, Ras Baraka and other hip-hop activists, Chavis met Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen in 1986 at Def Jam Records. As head of the NAACP in 1993, he worked with Run DMC to mobilize youth voters.

Thus, it made perfect sense when hip-hop’s premier video director, Hype Williams, cast Chavis in the pivotal role as the “Minister” in the 1998 hip-hop classic movie “BELLY,” which starred superstar hip-hop artists Nas ,Method Man and DMX. More recently Dr. Ben performed the Intro and Out-tro to Jim Jones and the Diplomats 2004 hip-hop album, “On My Way to Church.” In 2005. Dr Ben is featured on Cassidy’s

“I Am A Hustler” platinum selling album. In 2006, Dr. Ben is featured on Jim Jones record-breaking album: “A Hustler’s POME” where he performs the monologue on the track entitled, “Concrete Jungle.”

When Dr. Chavis organized both the Million Man and Million Family Marches in 1995 and 2000 respectively, Russell Simmons worked with him to mobilize hip-hop leaders to support the marches. Ultimately, the two men realized they had a similar vision for this generation of hip-hop youth, and to that end, they created the first national Hip-Hop Summit in New York City, from which led to Simmons and Chavis co-founding the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) in June 2001.

Six years later, the HSAN today is the largest worldwide coalition of hip-hop artists, recording industry executives, youth activists and civil rights leaders. Over 60 Hip-Hop Summits have been held throughout the United States and in Canada. Over the several years HSAN has help to build a coalition that has registered to vote over 7 million 18-35 year-olds across America.

Dr Chavis is married Martha Rivera Chavis and the father of eight children.

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network has benefited greatly from the leadership of Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. And the feeling is mutual: “The hip-hop generation is the most talented and socially conscious generation of youth that has ever emerged on the world stage to demand respect and justice for all,” he said.


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