A North Texas pastor who was a finalist for president of the NAACP was not selected for the position.

The civil rights organization picked Benjamin Jealous, a 35-year-old former news executive and lifelong activist, as its new leader.

The Rev. Frederick Haynes of Friendship West Baptist Church in Oak Cliff was a finalist. He has been the pastor of the Dallas church since 1983.

Jealous succeeds Bruce Gordon, who resigned abruptly in March 2007. Gordon left after 19 months, citing clashes with board members over management style and the NAACP's mission as his reasons for leaving. Dennis Courtland Hayes had been serving as interim president and chief executive officer.

Jealous, who will be the youngest president in the NAACP's 99-year history, was born in Pacific Grove, Calif., and educated at Columbia University and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

He has worked as a community organizer for the NAACP; as managing editor of a black newspaper in Mississippi; executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the country's largest group of black community newspapers; and as director of Amnesty International's U.S. Human Rights Program.

Since 2005, Jealous has served as president of the San Francisco-based Rosenberg Foundation, a private institution that supports civil and human rights advocacy.