The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has announced a $1 million grant from hedge fund manager and philanthropist George Soros through his foundation, the Open Society Foundations.

The grant, which will be matched by LDF's board, was awarded in support of the D.C.-based organization's new president-director counsel, Sherrilyn Ifill, and its civil rights agenda. "We welcome Mr. Soros to the LDF family and we are gratified by his statement of confidence in LDF and in our new president-director counsel," said LDF board co-chairs David Mills and Gerald Adolph in a statement. "We are committed as a board to matching and even exceeding his generous contribution. The work of LDF remains critical to our achieving a just and open society."

A former law professor and LDF staff attorney, Ifill served as board chair of OSF's U.S. Programs for two years before joining the fund. Established by civil rights attorney and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1940, LDF has helped secure a landmark victory in Brown v. Board of Education and most recently argued on behalf of African-American voters in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case that challenged the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.

"LDF is a great American institution that remains vigorously engaged in the fight for justice in the areas of voting rights, access to economic and educational opportunity, and in challenging injustice in the criminal justice system," said Ifill. "This generous gift and our board's match will enable us to maintain the standard of excellence for which LDF is well known and will help to fuel the next phases of this important civil rights work."