Naacp President

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."

NEW YORK -- The NAACP's Kweisi Mfume era began last night with a private reception, billed by the nation's largest civil rights group as a celebration of "our new day begun," in honor of the Baltimore congressman and incoming NAACP president.Despite a threat of resistance from the NAACP board's old guard, Mr. Mfume, a 47-year-old five-term Democratic congressman from Baltimore, plans to take hold of the troubled organization over the next several days.Tomorrow, Mr. Mfume will address the rank and file of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the group's annual meeting.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume spent the night before he was named NAACP president registered in a Washington hotel under the assumed name Charles Newday.For Earl G. Graves, the magazine publisher and Mfume confidant who coined it, the name was significant: It was a new day not only for the beleaguered National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but also for the 47-year-old Baltimore congressman.Mr. Mfume was moving beyond the confines of Maryland's 7th District (inner-city Baltimore and western Baltimore County)

Seeking innovative ways to reinvigorate the nation's oldest civil rights organization, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP's new president, pledged yesterday to appeal to professional sports leagues, recruit younger members and even log onto the Internet.At his first news conference since announcing Dec. 9 that he was leaving Congress to head the NAACP, Mr. Mfume accepted a $100,000 donation and sketched out details to restore credibility to the beleaguered organization."My prime focus is to rebuild the dignity and respect of this organization," he said.

FOUR YEARS ago, George W. Bush approached the NAACP convention in Baltimore with charming aplomb. The Republican presidential candidate knew he wasn't likely to pick up many votes from the overwhelmingly black organization, which differed sharply with him and his party on a wide range of issues. But he went in armed with self-deprecating humor, and the admonition that "our nation is harmed when we let our differences separate us and divide us." President Bush proved to be prophetic about that, and nowhere is it more evident than in his refusal to speak to this year's NAACP convention, now under way in Philadelphia.

The NAACP will be able to fly its civil rights banner on a worldwide stage if a United Nations committee approves its application to become a "non-governmental organization." The NGO application for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is in the final stages of approval and should be completed no later than July, a U.N. spokesman said yesterday. The NAACP is seeking consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council; 2,234 NGOs work with the council in areas such as human rights and international health, economic and social problems.

WASHINGTON -- In his inaugural speech as head of the nation's oldest civil rights organization, NAACP President and CEO Bruce S. Gordon implored the group's membership yesterday to seize responsibility for solving the problems facing black Americans and focus less on the impediments to civil rights. "I am not here today to wallow in our misery," said the retired Verizon Communications Inc. executive during his much-anticipated keynote address at the Washington Convention Center. "We know the problems, we know the statistics.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume made an emotional appeal for unity yesterday as he addressed the civil rights group's convention for the first time in his new leadership role."

Kweisi Mfume, a former Baltimore City councilman and U.S. congressman who has led the NAACP for the past nine years, is expected to announce his resignation from the civil rights organization today. A source with knowledge of the announcement said last night that Mfume is leaving voluntarily to explore opportunities including television, business or politics. Mfume, 56, has said he would like time off to spend with his six sons, the youngest of whom is 14. He also reportedly is looking forward to a break from the punishing schedule of leading the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group.

After four years of refusing to meet with the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group, President Bush sat down at the White House yesterday with NAACP President Kweisi Mfume. Mfume called it a "very frank, open meeting" that he hoped would mark the end of a rocky relationship between the president and the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Bush spoke to the group while campaigning in 2000 but did not accept invitations thereafter. The estrangement came to a head when Bush refused to speak at the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia this summer, blaming rhetoric and name-calling from its leaders.