The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has announced that its new president will be former Black newspaper reporter and Rhodes scholar Ben Jealous, 35. He will take over as president in September. September is just far enough away
That’s because the job of president (or executive director) of the NAACP is an occupation with little job security, and worse, a terrible track record. Since 1993, the organization has had three different presidents: Ben Chavis, Kweisi Mfume, and Bruce Gordon.
Chavis was unceremoniously dumped while taking the organization into debt and setting aside $342,000 of the organization’s money to settle a sexual harassment suit. Mfume allegedly gave raises and promotions to women with whom he had close personal relations during the nine years he was president. Gordon lasted only 19 months in the job before he resigned, reportedly because of clashes with the board of directors.
Ah, and therein lies the problem. The NAACP board, all 64 members, is the most dysfunctional group of “colored” people in the land. The board has reduced the venerable organization to a joke, a dim shadow of its former relevance. Of course, how relevant can a Black organization be if it still calls itself “colored?”
The board, headed by Julian Bond, has determined that it will be in charge, that it will decide the future of the NAACP, even while it is stuck in the past. Even the selection of Jealous was not without controversy. Jealous prevailed by a 34-to-21 vote, which reportedly took EIGHT HOURS. Just a few hours later, Dr. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit NAACP branch, which boasts being largest branch, issued a statement noting that Jealous was not his first choice.
“As a member of the national search committee for the next NAACP President and CEO and also a National Board Member of the NAACP, Mr. Ben Jealous, although very capable and possesses a great deal of potential, was not my first choice. The first choice for me was Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, TX,” said Anthony’s statement. “The organization is at a turning point in its 100-year history,” the statement continued.
Rev. Amos C. Brown, a board member from San Francisco, told the Baltimore Sun, “Nobody has ever heard of him. He’s never been to our church.” Brown told the newspaper that Jealous was the only candidate brought before the board and said there should have been more choices. “How are you going to be relevant when you are not reasonable and righteous within your own house?” Brown demanded. Hardly a vote of confidence.
In recent years, the NAACP has distinguished itself by launching an all-out effort to stop the execution of Crips founder and convicted murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams. It also had to admit that it was padding its membership numbers by almost half. More recently, elections in several of the NAACP branches around the country were called into question after voting irregularities.
Here in Chicago, the four separate NAACP branches (North Side, West Side, South Side and Far South Side) have been invisible. The dysfunction here in Chicago is just a microcosm of the lack of direction in the national organization. Dr. Anthony is correct in noting that the NAACP is at a turning point. It can decide to right itself, and return to relevancy, or, continue to grind itself into dust.
It is up to the members of the NAACP to demand more from the organization, to demand that it change for the better. The members can refuse to accept a bloated,64-member board. The members, including NEW members, can decide that Ben Jealous is the right person to begin the next 100 years of the NAACP, or they can allow it to sink further into insignificance.
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