Naacp Officials

IN HIS keynote address to the NAACP's annual conference this month, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume blasted the gun industry, the TV networks and police agencies. Mr. Mfume's tough talk made me wonder whether the nation's oldest civil rights group would again become the big player in the battle against racism and injustice that it has been for most of its long history.I wondered about this because the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has spent most of the 1990s in a monumental retreat from cutting-edge social activism.

After nearly a year of organizing, an attempt to revive a branch of the NAACP in Carroll County has taken root.Membership for the local chapter exceeds 100, the minimum for establishing a branch of the national civil rights organization, organizers said yesterday."

The Maryland Higher Education Commission reports that black enrollment in state colleges and universities reached an all-time high of 44,000 last year, rebounding from sharp declines during the 1980s. That's encouraging news, and we can only hope that the upward trend will continue.One of the more interesting details of the commission's report was its breakdown of where the increases occurred. Most of the additional black students came from suburban areas such as Prince George's and Montgomery counties.

NAACP officials last night released a report showing that African-American students in Maryland public schools continue to lag behind their peers in statewide testing. "Our worst nightmare was true," said Natalie Woodson, education chairwoman for the NAACP's state conference of branches, which is meeting this weekend in Timonium. "We're not here to regurgitate the negative data. We're here to look at it objectively and see what we're doing to turn it around." After Woodson's announcement and release of statistics, NAACP education leaders gathered in a panel discussion to share possible ways to close the achievement gap. All 24 Maryland school systems were included in the report, which separated African-Americans' scores on the 1999 Maryland School Performance Assessment Program from all other scores.

The banking industry became the latest target of NAACP officials yesterday after President Kweisi Mfume released "report card" grades for 15 financial institutions and urged blacks to avoid using banks that received low marks. The banks were graded on employment, community reinvestment, advertising/marketing, vendor development and charitable giving. Collectively, they received a C-minus. Bank of America Corp., the country's largest bank, received a B, while SunTrust Banks Inc. received an F for failing to participate.

The Baltimore branch of the NAACP has scheduled a second election for president on Dec. 21. The Nov. 21 election was overturned because candidate Larry Young's name was missing from the ballot. The incumbent, G. I. Johnson, said he was leading when the election was suspended. John C. White, national NAACP spokesman, said the election will be held from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the United Baptist Missionary building at 940 Madison Ave. White was not sure whether the vote tally would be ratified by the national office or local NAACP officials would oversee it. The first election was suspended by Nelson Rivers, director of national field operations, after Young learned that his name was not on the ballot.

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.

Baltimore City Councilman Bernard C. "Jack" Young left a public hearing last night disappointed for two reasons.First, his bill to prohibit the use of city money to buy reference books that contain racial slurs drew opposition from the city solicitor, the school board and the city's Office of Community Relations.Second, only one person showed up to talk about it -- and she opposed it.Young's bill would prohibit using city money to purchase reference books and materials for schools and libraries that contain any words "commonly understood to be racial epithets or racial slurs."

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume chided Maryland NAACP officials yesterday for protesting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' plan to speak at an Eastern Shore banquet.Mfume said the move violated Americans' right to freedom of speech, "a process by which the NAACP has challenged injustice for almost a century.""Free speech in a democratic society must be fought for, whether we like what we hear or not, because one day someone will come to silence us, and then who will speak for us?" Mfume said at a Johns Hopkins Hospital celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

WASHINGTON -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said last night that the nation's largest civil rights group has reduced its debt to $250,000, down from $3.2 million when he took charge of the organization in February.Mfume made the remark in a talk to the Capital Press Club, a black journalists group. He shared the podium with Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League, another major civil rights organization.Mfume said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which has headquarters in Baltimore, expects to wipe out the debt "very shortly."