Evers Williams

NEW YORK -- Myrlie B. Evers-Williams, the new chairwoman of the debt-ridden NAACP, vowed yesterday to bind up the organization's self-inflicted wounds and move it back to the forefront of the nation's civil rights movement."

Civil Rights The Autobiography of Medgar Evers Edited by Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable. Basic Civitas Books. 352 pages. In the preface, Myrlie Evers-Williams describes her dismay that today's young people rarely recognize the name of her slain husband, with some even mistaking him for a Negro League baseball player. She makes clear that this exhaustive volume chronicling the life and death of her civil rights leader husband is intended to set the record straight. The Autobiography of Medgar Evers etches a rightful place in civil rights history for a man who was content to toil in the shadows while other giants of the movement, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, worked the spotlight.

NEW YORK -- By a single vote, the NAACP board ousted Chairman William F. Gibson yesterday and installed Myrlie B. Evers-Williams as the leader of the nation's largest civil rights group.The 30-29 vote, taken behind closed doors on a secret ballot, capped months of rancor within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People over reports that Dr. Gibson racked up $800,000 in extravagant expenses while the NAACP went $4 million in debt.The action came just hours after 800 members of the organization's rank and file overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding, no-confidence motion against Dr. Gibson.

CLEMSON, S.C. -- A win at Clemson today would give Maryland its best record ever after 20 games. The Tigers are the biggest disappointment of the winter in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and you could almost see the gears working inside the head of Gary Williams, as he tried to cast the Terps as underdogs in what would appear to be a mismatch.Nobody on his roster has won at Littlejohn Coliseum here. A three-season losing streak there and the chance at a historical win would figure to make the stakes sweet enough for No. 4 Maryland (17-2, 5-1)

The NAACP, restored to stability, will choose its new leader tomorrow, and veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond appears to be the favored candidate.The organization's board will meet in New York to choose a new chairman to replace Myrlie Evers-Williams, who announced last week that she would not seek a fourth term. At last count, six candidates -- including Joe Madison, a Montgomery County radio host -- were in the race.But many are pointing to Bond, a longtime activist and Washington history professor, to take the helm and work with President Kweisi Mfume in bringing energy and renewed stature to the Baltimore-based group.

THE DECISION by NAACP board Chairwoman Myrlie Evers-Williams not to seek re-election this month is disappointing but not surprising.She was reluctant to seek the post three years ago, knowing her husband Walter Edward Williams had terminal prostate cancer.But Mr. Williams, who has since died, persuaded his wife that she was the right person to lead the NAACP, just as he had convinced her to pursue the retrial that after 31 years led to a conviction and long prison term in the 1963 murder of her first husband, Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

Myrlie Evers-Williams -- who was elected board chairwoman of an NAACP mired in debt and disarray and led it to financial stability during a three-year tenure -- announced yesterday that she would not seek re-election to the post when her term expires this month.Evers-Williams, who notified the 64-member NAACP board by letter yesterday, said she will direct her attention to founding an institute that will preserve the work and memory of her late husband, slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

WASHINGTON -- The clutches of the law are closing tighter around William Gibson, the ousted chairman who almost destroyed the NAACP. That means that the new leaders of this civil-rights organization, Chairman Myrlie Evers-Williams and President Kweisi Mfume, will face a grave crisis at the February 17 board meeting.They must convince the warring board to move legally to force Dr. Gibson to return the hundreds of thousands of NAACP dollars that he took improperly, or the nation's most renowned civil-rights organization will itself face strong punishment from the Internal Revenue Service.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, the newly elected chairwoman of the NAACP, confronts a difficult agenda. In the next few months she must heal the deep divisions left by her predecessor, William F. Gibson, sort out the tangled finances that have left the nation's oldest civil rights group some $4 million in debt, find a replacement for fired Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis and deal with a Republican-dominated 104th Congress that is determined to dramatically cut...

In announcing her candidacy for the chairmanship of the troubled NAACP last week, Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, offered a ray of hope.Ms. Evers-Williams is a former corporate executive and commissioner of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, where she oversaw a $1 billion budget and 7,000 employees. She is qualified to lead the nation's oldest civil rights group back to health. Whether that hope is realized depends on the willingness of the NAACP's fractious board to do the right thing when it meets Saturday.

"Betty Shabazz," edited by Jamie Foster Brown. Simon & Schuster. 160 pages. $23.Before her death in a tragic fire, Betty Shabazz was besknown as the widow of Malcolm X and the woman who went on earn a Ph.D. and become a college administrator while raising their six daughters and traveling around the world keeping Malcolm's name and mission alive.In "Betty Shabazz," a marvelous collection of 40 essays, readers can learn more about this inspiring woman, mentor and friend to everyone from Maya Angelou and Queen Latifah to former NAACP chair Myrlie Evers-Williams and Gloria Steinem.

The NAACP, restored to stability, will choose its new leader tomorrow, and veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond appears to be the favored candidate.The organization's board will meet in New York to choose a new chairman to replace Myrlie Evers-Williams, who announced last week that she would not seek a fourth term. At last count, six candidates -- including Joe Madison, a Montgomery County radio host -- were in the race.But many are pointing to Bond, a longtime activist and Washington history professor, to take the helm and work with President Kweisi Mfume in bringing energy and renewed stature to the Baltimore-based group.

THE DECISION by NAACP board Chairwoman Myrlie Evers-Williams not to seek re-election this month is disappointing but not surprising.She was reluctant to seek the post three years ago, knowing her husband Walter Edward Williams had terminal prostate cancer.But Mr. Williams, who has since died, persuaded his wife that she was the right person to lead the NAACP, just as he had convinced her to pursue the retrial that after 31 years led to a conviction and long prison term in the 1963 murder of her first husband, Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

Myrlie Evers-Williams -- who was elected board chairwoman of an NAACP mired in debt and disarray and led it to financial stability during a three-year tenure -- announced yesterday that she would not seek re-election to the post when her term expires this month.Evers-Williams, who notified the 64-member NAACP board by letter yesterday, said she will direct her attention to founding an institute that will preserve the work and memory of her late husband, slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

LIKE THE OTHER members of the troika of widows of slain civil rights leaders -- Coretta Scott King and Myrlie Evers-Williams -- Betty Shabazz used her husband's death as a catalyst for personal change that positively affected many lives.The 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, who as an Islamic minister had taken a vow of poverty, left Mrs. Shabazz with no source of income to provide for her four young daughters and the twins she was pregnant with.Lesser individuals might have scurried to some obscure locale where they could live out their lives in anonymity and raise their children away from the worldly threats inherent in being the offspring of a famous person.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume surprised members of his own board of directors when he called last week for a boycott of 10 major hotel chains, and some say he did not consult closely enough with the policy-making body.At least two board members learned of the news while staying in hotels that flunked the NAACP's test of 16 lodging chains, board sources say.Eight hotel chains received F's for not cooperating with an NAACP survey of hiring, promotion and procurement.Two others took part but got failing grades.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly reported the year in which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded, 1909.The Sun regrets the error.NAACP Chairwoman Myrlie B. Evers-Williams urged African-American business contractors yesterday to help repay the organization for making their success possible and also criticized moves in the country to scale back affirmative action."Where would each and every one of you be? Where would you and I be if not for this organization that pricked the conscience of America?"

Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of an NAACP martyr, declared her candidacy yesterday for the chairmanship of the troubled civil rights organization.Ms. Evers-Williams poses the strongest challenge yet to Chairman William F. Gibson, whom NAACP critics accuse of lavish spending and financial mismanagement. The Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has a $4 million deficit."We need new leadership," said Ms. Evers-Williams, a longtime NAACP activist whose first husband, Medgar Evers, the group's Mississippi field secretary, was shot to death in 1963 by a white supremacist.

WASHINGTON -- The clutches of the law are closing tighter around William Gibson, the ousted chairman who almost destroyed the NAACP. That means that the new leaders of this civil-rights organization, Chairman Myrlie Evers-Williams and President Kweisi Mfume, will face a grave crisis at the February 17 board meeting.They must convince the warring board to move legally to force Dr. Gibson to return the hundreds of thousands of NAACP dollars that he took improperly, or the nation's most renowned civil-rights organization will itself face strong punishment from the Internal Revenue Service.

NAACP Chairman Myrlie Evers-Williams said yesterday that the group's board will name an executive director as planned today, despite a move by disgruntled members to change the selection process.A search committee met late yesterday in Washington to pick a single candidate to recommend to the 64-member NAACP board. There was no word on their choice. The panel has interviewed about a dozen candidates, out of 200 who applied for the job, committee members said.Meanwhile, former Chairman William F. Gibson, who lost the chairmanship to Mrs. Evers-Williams by one vote in February, said he will not run for re-election to the board when his term ends early next year.