National Board Suspends Winston-Salem NAACP President

By Melde RutledgeSpecial to the NNPA from the Carolina Peacemaker WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (NNPA) – The national NAACP board of directors has voted to suspend Winston-Salem NAACP President Stephen Hairston and treasurer, Irene Phillips, after receiving numerous complaints last year from former branch secretary Millicent JoAnne Allen. Hairston received the letter, dated March 8, last week when he arrived at the branch’s office. Allen accused Hairston, Phillips, and current secretary Linda Sutton of violating the NAACP’s constitution and bylaws in her six-page report dated Aug. 5, 2005, which Allen said was received by the national office on Sept. 1, 2005. After the national office’s branch and field department made its suggestion from the complaints, the national board of directors, which met in mid-February in New York, made final recommendations. “Hopefully we can just progress and do things,” Allen said after the investigation, “and get things back on track instead of serving other individuals personal agendas.” The national board voted to suspend Hairston and Phillips when it was concluded that Hairston signed his and Phillips’ name on deposited branch checks. Under NAACP guidelines, the treasurer must handle all deposits and both president and treasurer must sign the checks. “When the treasurer goes out of town, on vacation or whatever, I’m not going to hold all these checks and money and stuff in my office, on my person, when I can go down to the bank and make a deposit,” Hairston said. Phillips could not be reached before press time. She told the Winston-Salem Journal that she had asked Hairston to deposit checks when she was headed out of town on “maybe one or two” occasions in 2003. “What I did was a mistake of the heart, not of the mind,” Hairston said. “I know I hadn’t committed fraud.” Hairston said that he also has signed vice president Jim Shaw’s name on documents because Shaw gave him written permission to do so. The national board also ordered that all officers and executive committee members of the Winston-Salem branch attend a branch administration training session by the national office staff by March 18. Any member that fails to attend may face removal from office. The terms of Hairston and Phillips’ suspensions keep the two from holding office until 2009. Yet, both have appealed their suspension, which entitles them to hold on to their position at least until the appeal process concludes in May, when the national board meets again to review the appeals, according to Hairston. Hairston said that state NAACP president, the Rev. William Barber, is making an appeal on Hairston’s behalf as well. “All that mess she threw at me, that’s the only thing that came out,” Hairston said about Allen’s complaints. “This was the only thing they came up with.” In other claims dismissed by the national board, Allen accused Hairston and Sutton of purchasing the chapter’s headquarters on 4130 Oak Ridge Drive. The property was deeded to the local branch with both of their signatures, even though Allen pointed out in her complaint that it was supposed to be purchased by the national office. Allen also said that Hairston and Phillips submitted false information to the national office pertaining to the amount of money raised during the 2004 Freedom Fund Fundraiser. “They didn’t find anything wrong with any of that stuff,” Hairston said.