Naacp Leaders

A Soweto branch of the NAACP?That will be one result of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's first high-level visit to South Africa, says the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., the civil rights group's executive director.A dozen-member NAACP delegation, headed by Dr. Chavis and board chairman Dr. William F. Gibson, left yesterday and will return March 7. The NAACP is based in Baltimore.The group plans to meet today with Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader, who is expected to become president after South Africa's first multiracial election next month.

The Anne Arundel County branch of the NAACP held a show of support Tuesday afternoon for Carl O. Snowden, the head of the state attorney general's civil rights office. The event came on the heels of Snowden's appeal of a drunken-driving conviction. Several community leaders, including elected officials and the president of the state NAACP, spoke so effusively about Snowden's four decades of community activism that Snowden, 57, reminded those in attendance at the Wiley H. Bates Legacy Center in Annapolis that it was "not a eulogy.

CHICAGO -- Angered by criticism of their performance, NAACP leaders and their defenders have circled the wagons at the group's 85th annual convention, bashed the media and sniped at detractors.Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, yesterday blamed reporters, "mostly of the white press," for controversy about the civil rights group. She told 3,000 NAACP delegates: "Don't let anybody pull you apart. Don't let anybody divide you."Ms. Waters picked up on the tone set by the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. in his keynote address Sunday night -- a speech in which he departed from his text to deride media critics and to offer "public forgiveness to all of those [NAACP members]

Observers say the $1 million donated by Tyler Perry to the NAACP on Monday might spark several other hefty donations from wealthy black philanthropists, gifts that could help revive the civil rights organization as it continues to face questions about its relevancy. Perry's donation marks the largest gift from an individual in the Baltimore-based organization's 100-year history. Maxim Thorne, the NAACP's senior vice president, said he hopes it will mark a shift in black charity.

The success of former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Louisiana and the possibility of losing an important battle with the U.S. Senate forced President Bush to support a civil rights bill in Congress, civil rights leader Julian Bond told a gathering of Maryland NAACP leaders yesterday."

Easton -- State police said yesterday that they are investigating the death of an Eastern Shore man while he was in the custody of Easton police Saturday, one day after he was arrested by an officer who used pepper spray. Officials from two local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held a press conference yesterday to discuss the case and said they were satisfied for the moment with the state police inquiry. But they said they were frustrated that an autopsy by the state medical examiner to determine the cause of 32-year-old Nevin Keith Potter's death has not been finished.

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Dick Armey accused NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and board of directors Chairman Julian Bond of "racial McCarthyism" in a letter to Mfume last week. Armey's accusations were made in response to comments Mfume and Bond made Feb. 17 during the NAACP's annual meeting in Washington, when both leaders said President Bush was sharply dividing the nation instead of uniting it as he has vowed to do. During the meeting, Bond told about 350 people gathered in the ballroom of the Capital Hilton, "Instead of uniting us, the new administration almost daily separates and divides."

Observers say the $1 million donated by Tyler Perry to the NAACP on Monday might spark several other hefty donations from wealthy black philanthropists, gifts that could help revive the civil rights organization as it continues to face questions about its relevancy. Perry's donation marks the largest gift from an individual in the Baltimore-based organization's 100-year history. Maxim Thorne, the NAACP's senior vice president, said he hopes it will mark a shift in black charity.

The Howard County school board and the Howard chapter of the NAACP vowed this week to communicate better and work together to eliminate the disparities in achievement and discipline between black students and other students.But their Tuesday night meeting appears to have been a violation of the Maryland open-meetings law, which requires that public bodies give "reasonable advance notice" of open meetings. School officials said they forgot to announce the meeting until hours before it was to occur.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume are scheduled to meet Thursday in Washington after NAACP leaders recently accused President Bush of dividing the country. At the NAACP's annual meeting in Washington last month, Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond held no punches, saying, "They [the Bush administration] selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing and chose Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."

CINCINNATI - The barrier-shattering candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama is cause for pride and praise, but it does not diminish the need for bold civil rights activism, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said during a speech launching the organization's 99th annual convention. By clinching the Democratic nomination for president, Obama embodies the aspirations of the civil rights movement, but his candidacy does not "herald a post-civil rights America any more than his victory in November will mean that race as an issue has been vanquished in America," Bond told a crowd of more than 1,000 people last night at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati.

A woman with a reputation for working well with people hopes to revive flagging membership in the Anne Arundel County chapter of the NAACP after nearly a year of turmoil that culminated last month in the ousting of its president. Former Vice President Alva Sheppard-Johnson said she is eager to re-establish relationships with community groups that felt alienated during Wayne Jearld's tenure as president. She also wants to refocus on past priorities, such as education and voter registration.

The NAACP's long-planned move to Washington is on hold - at least for now. Last year, leaders of the nation's oldest civil rights organization announced, with great fanfare, their intention to relocate NAACP headquarters from Northwest Baltimore to the nation's capital. In December, the District of Columbia City Council voted to provide $3.5 million in grants to help the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People move to Anacostia Gateway, a 63,000-square-foot office complex rising along the eastern banks of the Anacostia River.

Bruce S. Gordon was, as always, tactful and circumspect in explaining why he was bowing out as NAACP president after only 19 months at the helm. He would only say that there were differences between himself and others in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; presumably, that meant his differences were with some on the organization's 64-member national board. His low-key pronouncement was in keeping with the no-nonsense, corporate approach to civil rights advocacy that he brought to the organization.

It was a mismatch from the start. Bruce S. Gordon was the civil rights outsider with the robust corporate resume. The board that hired him was a collection of 64 personalities, many of them foot soldiers in past battles for racial equality. Gordon's abrupt departure from the NAACP - he announced his resignation as president and chief executive officer Sunday and said he plans to leave today - did not come as a surprise, said board members who had noticed his growing frustration with their decisions.

Easton -- State police said yesterday that they are investigating the death of an Eastern Shore man while he was in the custody of Easton police Saturday, one day after he was arrested by an officer who used pepper spray. Officials from two local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held a press conference yesterday to discuss the case and said they were satisfied for the moment with the state police inquiry. But they said they were frustrated that an autopsy by the state medical examiner to determine the cause of 32-year-old Nevin Keith Potter's death has not been finished.

The deficit-plagued NAACP has laid off seven employees and expects to have cut spending by $500,000 by the end of this year, officials said yesterday.Earl T. Shinhoster, the NAACP's interim senior administrator, said three employees at the civil rights group's Northwest Baltimore headquarters and four staff members elsewhere have lost their jobs."It is not over yet," he warned. The NAACP is $3.8 million in debt, sources say, and the group's chairman, Dr. William F. Gibson, faces allegations that he misused organization funds and spent extravagantly on travel.

Baltimore leaders, civic and political, are tripping over one another in the rush to pucker up and kiss the feet of NAACP board chairman Julian Bond in an attempt to keep the civil rights organization's national headquarters in Baltimore. A tip of the hat and my hearty gratitude to the politician or civic leader who will tell Bond, "Well, get to steppin', partner." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since Bond took the helm as chairman isn't your granddaddy's NAACP.