Wade Henderson is the former president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. As CEO since 1996, Wade led the nation’s social justice coalition in forging consensus and developing strategy on major policy priorities regarding civil and human rights.

Under his guidance, The Leadership Conference steered successful campaigns to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act; pass the Help America Vote Act, the Fair Sentencing Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the ADA Amendments Act, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. He played key roles in ensuring the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and U.S. Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

Wade is the Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Professor of Public Interest Law at the David A. Clarke School of Law, University of the District of Columbia. Prior to his role with The Leadership Conference, he was the Washington Bureau director of the NAACP, where he directed the organization’s government affairs and national legislative program, and the associate director of the Washington national office of the ACLU, launching his career as a legislative counsel and advocate on civil rights and civil liberties issues. A graduate of Howard University and the Rutgers University School of Law, he is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and the District of Columbia.

During Wade’s tenure, the nation’s premier civil and human rights coalition grew from 170 to more than 200 member organizations, including the first Muslim and Sikh civil rights groups. He has greatly expanded the footprint of domestic civil and human rights organizations in the global discourse on social justice.

Through his life-long commitment to equality, Wade has made a profound impact on our nation’s journey toward an America as good as its ideals.