The NAACP has a new president and will reorganize to be more relevant.

WASHINGTON — The NAACP turned to an insider Saturday to help bring the nation’s oldest civil rights organization back to prominence.

Derrick Johnson, 49, of Jackson, Mississippi, was hired as the NAACP’s 19th president and CEO after having served as interim leader since July and previously as vice chairman of the NAACP board of directors.

Johnson said the NAACP will be much more politically active in the coming years and will alter its nonprofit status so it can more effectively lobby for its members’ positions.

Johnson’s hiring was finalized Saturday at a meeting of the board of directors in Arlington, Virginia.

Johnson has been the face of the NAACP since then as the organization has refocused its work on supporting its local chapters and tried to retool in the face of rising organizations like Black Lives Matter.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the NAACP can only engage in insubstantial lobbying efforts. So it will reorganize as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, similar to its local affiliates, which will allow it unlimited lobbying and promotion of political candidates and issues.

Local chapters “want to be able to have a stronger voice,” Johnson said, and the national NAACP wants to be “able to better support our members on the ground.”

The NAACP recently sued the Trump administration to stop it from eliminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed immigrants brought into the country illegally as children to be temporarily shielded from deportation.