Kweisi Mfume Resigns as NAACP President

By George E. Curry and Hazel Trice EdneyNNPA News Service WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Kweisi Mfume, the president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will resign, effective Jan. 1, after serving eight years as head of the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization. A news conference was scheduled for noon Tuesday at the NAACP’s headquarters in Baltimore to announce the decision. “Dennis Hayes, the general counsel, will act as interim president until a replacement is found, hopefully before the convention next summer,” says a member of the board of directors who requested anonymity because he was speaking prior to the official announcement. The NAACP, established in 1909, claims a membership of 500,000. It has 2,200 adult branches and 1,700 youth and college chapters. Although he is officially resigning, another board source says Mfume, who signed two 4-year contracts with the organization, was not offered a third contract by the 64-member board of trustees headed by Julian Bond. However, Mfume, who earns nearly $300,000 a year, will be retained as a paid consultant for six months, allowing him to maintain his salary and benefits until his successor is selected. Mfume’s resignation caught some NAACP insiders by surprise. The board learned of the decision in a Monday night telephone conference call and a staff meeting was called at national headquarters in Baltimore for 9 A.M. Tuesday, three hours before the news conference. Sources say Mfume’s decision to resign is unrelated to a recent disclosure that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether the NAACP violated its federal tax exempt status last summer when Board Chairman Julian Bond gave a speech highly critical of President Bush at the organization’s annual convention in Philadelphia. The IRS has strict prohibitions on tax-exempt groups participating in partisan politics. Bond says he was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech at time, not participating in partisan politics. It is widely known that Mfume is considering a run for the U.S. Senate from Maryland. The next competition for a Senate seat in Maryland will be in 2006, when Paul S. Sarbanes completes 30 years in the Senate. It is not yet known whether Sarbanes will seek re-election or retire. “With one Black with a funny name [Barak Obama, D-Ill.] joining the Senate, I guess he figured another one with a funny name can win, too,” a NAACP source joked. In his autobiography, “No Free Ride,” written with Ron Stodghill, the former five-term Congressman from Baltimore recalls that he changed his name from Frizzell Gray to Kweisi Mfume, a Ghanaian name meaning “Conquering Son of Kings” to symbolize his decision to shed his rough-and-tumble ways of the streets. Civil rights scholars say Mfume’s greatest contribution was helping restore fiscal health to an organization that was rocked by a sexual scandal that abruptly ended the controversial tenure of Benjamin Chavis as executive director of the NAACP. The organization sunk nearly $4 million in debt under the leadership of Chavis and Board Chairman William Gibson, a Greenville, S. C. dentist. Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers, succeeded Gibson in 1995 and after a national search, Mfume, former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was picked the following year to replace Chavis, who later joined Minister Louis Farrakhan in the Nation of Islam. After several years, Chavis, who changed his name to Muhammad and then back to Chavis, left the Nation and began working with Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons in New York. “Myrlie had already raised a million or so dollars when Mfume came aboard, but he was the reason the NAACP was able to raise several million dollars to get us out of debt,” a board source explains. Mfume was also credited with expanding youth involvement in the NAACP and bringing more professionals on staff. However, he was not viewed as a strong office administrator, opting for high-profile activities in Hollywood and national television appearances. For a while, Mfume hosted a weekly TV show in Baltimore but now hosts a monthly syndicated television program called “Remarkable Journey.” As he explores the possibility of a Senate bid, Mfume is expected to continue his paid speaking engagements and might serve as a political analyst for one of the cable networks, some of his advisers say. Although each man denies it, insiders say there was also friction between Mfume and Julian Bond over who would serve as the official face of the NAACP. Although that role has been traditionally played by the president (formerly called the executive director), for years the organization has always had a strong-willed board chair and Bond continues that mold. “Although this infighting has been going on for a while, you could tell that Mfume was getting tired,” one board source says. “You have two former politicians (Bond served in the Georgia House and Senate) with strong egos. And they both want to be the leader.” Mfume’s resignation caught many NAACP members by surprise, especially since he sent a conciliatory letter to President Bush less than a month ago requesting a meeting to set aside past differences. Both Mfume and Bond had been extremely critical of Bush for not addressing the group’s annual convention while in office, something no sitting president had done since the early 1920s. “Julian would have never written that letter to Bush,” one board member says. “Julian is really sharp on the issues and Mfume is forever the politician.” Forever might be an overstatement. When Bush refused to address NAACP’ delegates last summer, Mfume said at the time: ”We’re not fools. If you’re going to court us, court us in the daytime, but not like we’re a prostitute where you run around at night or behind closed doors and want to deal with us, but not want to deal with us in the light of the day.” Several board members interviewed say they don’t know if Mfume would have agreed to serve another four years if he had been presented with that option. “You have the unwieldy 64-member board [of the NAACP],” one board member notes. “But the organization is controlled by the 17-member executive committee. And Julian controls that. There was no way for Kweisi to get another contract unless that’s what Julian wanted.” Evidently, what Bond and other board members want is a national search to select the next president and CEO of the organization. Francisco L. Borges, treasurer of the board and two-time state treasurer in Connecticut, is expected to co-chair the search committee, members say. There has always been intrigue and power struggles within the NAACP. The infighting became so intense during the 1970s that then-chair, Margaret Bush Wilson, a St. Louis lawyer, suspended Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks for insubordination. But the bitterly-divided board reversed Wilson at its next meeting. Regardless of internal bickering at the national level, the strength of the NAACP has always been its local chapters, operated by volunteers. “People bad-mouth the NAACP, but when they get in trouble, that’s the first place they run to,” one NAACP executive says. “Whenever there is a discrimination complaint or police brutality, they go to one of branches. And that’s our strength.”