THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 18, 1994 TAG: 9410180347
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Wherever I look around the office these days, I see those cardboard thermometers touting contributions to the United Way of South Hampton Roads.
Apparently, my co-workers are very giving. Just two years after the national United Way was at the boiling point of controversy, nearly every one of those paper thermometers is blood-red with contributions.
In the very same week that three former United Way executives were indicted on charges they bled the organization of $1.5 million, local officials kicked off this fall's fund-raising campaign. And the contributions have been pouring in ever since.
It just goes to show, as Anne Frank said in her diary, that people are basically good at heart.
The only question now is whether society at-large will be as kind to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Just a few months after the ousting of its executive director, the Rev. Ben Chavis, for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without board approval to settle sexual harassment allegations, the national NAACP finds itself again under a microscope.
Buried inside a few national newspapers last weekend were reports that NAACP board Chairman Dr. William Gibson may have bilked the organization out of $300,000 in expenses that he had paid for with a credit card issued by the organization.
When he paid for plane tickets, rental cars and hotel rooms on his NAACP plastic, Gibson allegedly came home and filled out expense reports as if he'd paid those bills himself. The board has ordered an audit.
All of which makes me wonder: ``When will it ever end?''
Just how long will it be before every sacred American institution is sullied under the weight of scandal and malfeasance?
I doubt the founders of the NAACP's predecessor, the Niagara Movement, ever dreamed that it would come to this. W.E.B. DuBois is probably rolling over in his Ghanian grave.
Likewise the founders of the Community Chest, forerunner to the United Way, probably never expected that its CEO would be buying apartments for his girlfriend or taking junkets abroad - all with money earmarked for the needy.
Local officials of these organizations will tell you that their efforts are distinct from those of their national bodies.
Mike Hughes, president of the United Way of South Hampton Roads, said he hopes donations will increase now that the wheels of justice have started their grind on the national scandal. Local NAACP officials are just as parochial.
``We're having our Freedom Fund banquet, and people are asking questions,'' said Ethel Robinson, president of the Portsmouth NAACP branch. ``They want to know the status. I hope it's not affecting the NAACP.''
E. George Minns, president of the Virginia Beach branch, was quick to liken the NAACP controversy to the United Way scandal.
``People still support the United Way because it's an institution, and not a person,'' he said. ``The NAACP will survive because the problems will be dealt with, and for those of us who are committed to civil rights, we are hurt, but we shall move on.'' ILLUSTRATION: ``When will it ever end?''
United Way
Three former national executives were indicted on charges they
bled the organization of $1.5 million.
NAACP
The national executive director resigned, and the board chairman
is being investigated, over separate charges of misuse of money.
by CNB