Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 14, 1994                   TAG: 9410140113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Short

NAACP FACES NEW SCANDAL

In three columns written over the past week, Carl Rowan, the syndicated columnist, has asserted that Gibson has used his position as chairman for personal gain.

Rowan, a former official in the Johnson administration, alleged that the chairman had used an American Express card provided by the civil rights organization to charge more than $500,000 in airline travel, hotel expenses, car rentals and personal items since 1986.

Copies of NAACP financial records viewed Thursday indicated that for 1990 Gibson was given either $2,800 or $3,000 a month. Copies of the checks list the reason for the payments as ``board travel and per diem'' or ``office expenses.'' But the fact that the amount paid never varied raised the question of whether they constituted a stipend.

Financial records also indicate that in 1986, Gibson, a dentist from Greenville, S.C., who, like all board members, is a part-time volunteer, billed the organization for $30,579 in travel, hotel, restaurant and car-rental expenses - nearly three times the $11,479.07 billed to the organization by Benjamin Hooks, who was its full-time paid executive director at the time.

Gibson has denied using the organization's funds for personal use, and last week the board's executive committee released a statement supporting him against the allegations first raised by Rowan.

- The New York Times