Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 12, 1994 TAG: 9411140060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People board of directors changed election rules to require members aged 17-20 to join as adults in order to vote in branch elections. Prior to the change, youth members could vote as long as they were in good standing.
The change was announced two days after Chavis ally Earl King signed up thousands of 18- to 21-year-olds with $3 youth memberships through a registration drive. King is running for president of the South Side Chicago NAACP.
``This was designed especially for me,'' King said. ``People here ... are very afraid of my relationship with Dr. Benjamin Chavis, thinking he will come back in power if I win this election.''
The maneuver threatens to widen the split between the nation's oldest civil rights group and the younger generation of members it desperately needs.
It came as the NAACP reached a severance settlement with Chavis - and after it instructed its 2,200 branches not to invite Chavis as a speaker or a participant in NAACP events.
T.H. Poole, chairman of the NAACP board committee on branches, denied there was an attempt to shut out young NAACP members. He said the change was needed so that youth members won't vote both in branch elections and elections in youth councils or college chapters.
``They're not ineligible to vote in their chapters. They are ineligible to vote in the adult branch. That distinction had to be made," he said.
``If I'm a youth and there's a youth chapter, why would I join an adult chapter?'' Poole added.
But King said NAACP officials assured him the 18- and 21-year-olds he had recruited would be eligible for the Chicago NAACP election Nov. 19.
``Only when we turned in 3,000 memberships is when the discrepancy came up,'' he said. ``They took the $3 for all 3,000 of my members. They didn't say they would return the money.''
King, 41, worked closely with Chavis on gang intervention and attempts to strike a national truce in hopes of curbing urban violence. He was with Chavis at NAACP headquarters when Chavis was fired Aug. 20.
The NAACP pointed out the rules change to King and other Chicago candidates in an Oct. 21 memo that said the board's interpretation of NAACP bylaws was that a youth must hold the minimum adult membership in order to participate in a branch election. Branches, youth councils and college chapters were notified in a separate memo.
Two days earlier, King had given the South Side Chicago NAACP 5,000 membership applications and about $20,000 in membership fees. All 3,000 of the young members signed up to pay the $3 fee; the other 2,000 signed up for either $10 or $25 adult memberships, King said.
He said he is prepared to lodge a legal challenge if the members he recruited are not allowed to vote.
by CNB