Naacp Executive Director

MINNEAPOLIS -- If the NAACP is like family, as its leaders often say, then yesterday was a family feud.A noisy protest by Detroit delegates shut down the legislative session of the group's 86th annual convention. The delegates had been denied voting credentials because of a financial dispute with NAACP headquarters in Baltimore.Chanting "No justice, no peace," the 21 delegates and supporters drowned out proceedings on the convention floor, forcing adjournment. The convention had been billed as a time of healing after a year of NAACP infighting.

Washington.--With his job at stake at an emergency board meeting tomorrow, NAACP executive director Benjamin Chavis Jr. is trying to pull off what may be the greatest con job in the history of the organization.Mr. Chavis has told USA Today that since April 1993 he has increased NAACP membership from 490,000 to 675,000. He has told other media that through his ''dynamic new direction'' he has brought more than 100,000 more youths into the organization.Official internal NAACP documents show that this is so far from the truth that it is a tragic joke.

The Baltimore-based NAACP, disregarding a hometown bid for a National Football League franchise, endorsed yesterday the rival effort of Charlotte, N.C.The two cities are considered front-running competitors for an NFL franchise, but Charlotte's effort has been rocked by accusations of racism lodged against a company operated by the proposed team owner, Jerry Richardson.Yesterday, however, officials of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced they had reached a "fair-share agreement" with Richardson's NFL group and Flagstar Corp.

The NAACP's cynical agreement with Denny's owner Jerry Richardson to endorse his bid for a professional football team in Charlotte, North Carolina, in exchange for Mr. Richardson's pledge to stop discriminating against blacks at his Denny's restaurant chain and other businesses is a perfect example of why younger blacks have become disenchanted with the nation's oldest civil-rights organization.Of course, the NAACP now denies it ever made such a deal with Mr. Richardson. It also denies it ever ''endorsed'' Charlotte as the site of an NFL expansion team.

WASHINGTON -- A lawyer for ousted NAACP Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. portrayed him yesterday as "tainted" and desperate -- a man whose reputation is in tatters because he was fired, who has no income to support his family, with his wife expecting twins in October.Abbey G. Hairston, the lawyer, told a District of Columbia Superior Court judge that he should immediately order the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to give Dr. Chavis, 46, his job back because the NAACP board fired the civil rights leader Saturday in violation of its own bylaws.

To some extent, the flap over the signing of a fair share agreement between the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Richardson Sports/Carolinas Stadium Corporation recalls the uproar over the civil rights organization's adoption of an energy policy in 1976. The NAACP then was sharply criticized from within and without for straying too far from its original civil rights programs.The energy program was initiated in an attempt to give the NAACP a new look as much as to seek a new (some, excited by the idea, called it "sexy")

On Labor Day, deposed NAACP Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. marched shoulder-to- shoulder with a gaggle of New York politicians as they led the West Indian Day Parade past more than a million potential supporters in the heart of Brooklyn.And, like the politicians, Dr. Chavis was campaigning. Since being fired last month as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for secretly agreeing to pay a former employee up to $332,000 of the organization's money to avert a sexual discrimination suit, he has been in grave danger of becoming a leader in search of a constituency.

Washington. -- Another angry outburst has arisen within the NAACP. This time it is over what some members call ''double-dipping'' expense reimbursements to Chairman William F. Gibson.Furious insiders have provided me with NAACP and American Express documents and copies of checks made payable to Dr. Gibson that suggest the South Carolina dentist has used a credit card and received unexplained checks that have drained NAACP coffers of well over a half-million dollars since 1986.Dr. Gibson told me yesterday that he can justify the American Express charges as well as the ''reimbursement'' checks that have averaged about $2,400 a month over eight years.

In a victory for young NAACP insurgents, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge last night ordered the city branch of the civil rights group to allow youths to vote in its election of new officers.Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman ruled that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's constitution entitled young members ages 17-20 who have paid $3 annual dues to vote. The NAACP national board had interpreted the constitution to mean that only youths who paid adult dues of $10 could vote.

WASHINGTON -- At a judge's urging, an NAACP lawyer pledged yesterday to extend the health insurance coverage of fired Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. through the end of October, when Dr. Chavis' wife, Martha, is due to have twins.The move came during a status hearing on Dr. Chavis' suit against the NAACP in District of Columbia Superior Court. An Oct. 24 hearing was scheduled on Dr. Chavis' request for a preliminary injunction to block the NAACP from firing him.Attorneys for both sides said they would try to settle the dispute before then.