Source: USA TODAY
On September 21, 2000, USA TODAY reported on Joan Brown Campbell. "'I face the future,' says Campbell, recently retired general secretary of the National Council of Churches. Her last public role: assisting Elian Gonzalez during the Cuban boy's tempestuous months in America. Campbell found an American lawyer for Elian's father and later waved farewell when the U.S. legal system permitted the boy's return to Havana." During the nine years she was at the National Council of Churches, she "pushed the 35 denominations of the NCC to be 'the public voice of faith on the social issues of the day, to face up to government in pursuing social justice, and to improve the life of the poor.'" One might think that the 68 year old is retiring to a more tranquil life, but this is hardly the case. She has just signed on as the "director of the department of religion at The Chautauqua Institution, an enclave of faith, self-improvement and high culture set in a gated, flowery lakeside campus in rural western New York."