Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408260009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gibson, it shouldn't be forgotten, approved the payments that Chavis made to a woman who had been fired and was threatening to sue on grounds of discrimination(!) and sexual harassment. Without informing the budget committee, general counsel or full board, Chavis tried to divert NAACP funds secretly for this purpose, presumably to escape personal embarrassment. Gibson was in on it.
The chairman's failures, moreover, go back much further than this controversy. Gibson, a South Carolina dentist, has over the years opened a deep schism on the NAACP board by insisting on keeping power tightly in his grip, by pursuing secretive machinations, and by loading the 64-member board with cronies. He also has overseen the spread of fiscal disarray and the accumulation of a $3 million NAACP deficit.
Keeping the rest of the organization in the dark about Chavis's hush-money payments was of a piece with these broader failures, all of which have helped to erode the organization's financial stability and moral credibility.
Most important, Gibson's departure and a board overhaul might help nudge the NAACP toward the fundamental question it needs to face at this juncture in its 85-year history: Where to go from here?
The civil-rights struggle has changed. It's more complicated now, as was noted in a recent speech by the Urban League's impressive new president, Hugh Price. Racism remains powerful and pervasive in our divided and unequal society, and needs to be fought at every turn. Yet, said Price: "We must not let ourselves and, especially, children fall into the paranoid trap of thinking that racism accounts for all that plagues us."
Chavis brought a welcome activism to his post at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, along with a helpful desire to connect with young people's concerns. But he took a wrong turn when he showed respect for the hatemongering, anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. The NAACP has traditionally eschewed demagoguery. It also has favored the path of integration over nationalism; it would be a shame to abandon that now.
At their own "black leadership summit" this weekend, Farrakhan preened at Chavis' side before the television cameras, jointly announcing the NAACP's irrelevance. But precisely because of its past relevance,its great role in the epic struggle for equal rights, people of all races should care whether the NAACP sinks irretrievably now into turmoil and bankruptcy.
In church Sunday, Chavis observed that he had become executive director last year on Good Friday. "Now there has been a crucifixion," he said. "But today, we celebrate the resurrection."
All of which suggests a rather inflated self-regard. Chavis is not as important as he assumes.
But neither is the NAACP as important as it once was and could be. The NAACP is far from dead, but it requires a serious revival. Next step: Shake up the board and remove its imperious head.
by CNB