Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408250030
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The troubles come not from the sort of white racism that vilified the organization in the '50s and '60s, or from a new breed of the radicalism that scorned the NAACP in the '60s and '70s.
The NAACP's troubles today come from within. A first step toward dealing with them would be the resignation of Benjamin Chavis as executive director, accompanied by a shakeup of the NAACP board.
Chavis, named in April 1993 to succeed the retiring Benjamin Hooks, would have faced a very tough job in any event. Sadly, his 16 months in the post have only made matters worse.
The job is tough, in part, because it has become more complex. Less important today are the courage and tactical skills of the generation that led the crusade against legal segregation and overt discrimination, a crusade in which the NAACP played so important and enduring a role.
Needed today are skills to grapple with such complicated problems as the breakdown of the black family, the persistence of poverty and welfare dependency among the underclass, and such symptoms of social disorder as drug abuse, crime and black-on-black violence. The rise of these symptoms is hardly unique to blacks, but they continue to suffer disproportionately from them.
In the heyday of the civil-rights movement, the righteousness of the NAACP's overriding goal - fighting legal segregation and racial injustice - was too clear to require debate. The answers to today's problems are not so clear, and a search for solutions requires analytical rigor and an openminded understanding that answers appropriate for yesterday's problems may not do much for today's and tomorrow's.
Against such a sobering challenge, Chavis has (1) been cited in sex-discrimination allegations, including a lawsuit whose settlement could cost the NAACP more than $300,000; (2) piled up a $3.3-million deficit in the organization's annual budget; and (3) apparently become infatuated with the idea of making friends with noted anti-Semite and hatemonger Louis Farrakhan.
Nos. 1 and 2 aren't exactly points in Chavis' favor. But the extension of olive branches to Farrakhan is particularly bad. It is not simply embarrassing to the NAACP; worse, it is contrary to the principles for which an earlier generation of black Americans put much at risk.
Meanwhile, the board that oversees the NAACP is dominated by power politics and a group of insiders loyal to Chairman William F. Gibson; the board's style is reminiscent less of the old NAACP than of the Chicago Board of Aldermen. Without board approval, Chavis was apparently able to pay off, with huge sums, a woman making sexual allegations. When the board meets next Saturday, whether Chavis stays or goes may well depend on Gibson's decision and Gibson's alone.
America needs a healthy NAACP. The chief battlefield may have shifted from the courtroom to the classroom, from the halls of Congress to the halls of inner-city projects. But there is no lack of important work for the NAACP to do, and it won't get done with sex-discrimination lawsuits, budget deficits and Farrakhan suck-ups.
by CNB