Gordon, Bruce S.

Gordon, Bruce S., 1946–, African-American business executive and civil-rights leader, b. Camden, N.J.; grad. Gettysburg College (B.A., 1968), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S., 1988). Gordon entered the telecommunications industry as a management trainee with Bell of Pennsylvania in 1968 and retired from the business in 2003 as a senior executive with Verizon. In 2005 he was appointed president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The first business executive to head the organization, he pledged to press for greater economic equality for African Americans, but differences with the NAACP's board over the role the organization should play led Gordon to resign in 2007.