LET'S SCRAP THE N.A.A.C.P.

By Jack E. White

This is a heartbreaking story to write at the start of Black History Month. For decades, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the nation's premier civil rights organization, doing more than anyone else to make the nation live up to its promise of equality under the law. Today the N.A.A.C.P. has become an embarrassment to African Americans--poorly managed, riddled with venality, and with almost nothing to say about the momentous racial issues. After 85 years the N-Double-A has finally outlived its usefulness at the national level. It's time to pull the plug on this sham and try something new.

The case for an institutional mercy killing goes beyond the N.A.A.C.P.'s scandalous financial condition--though that alone is reason enough. In December seven members of the N.A.A.C.P.'s board of directors and its tax- exempt Special Contributions Fund filed a federal lawsuit alleging that chairman of the board William Gibson has ``caused or permitted'' more than $1.4 million of the organization's money to be squandered. Based largely on N.A.A.C.P. financial records leaked to syndicated columnist Carl Rowan, the suit contends that during Gibson's 10 years as chairman, he has run up $500,000 worth of charges on his N.A.A.C.P.-paid American Express Card, while receiving at least $300,000 in reimbursements for the same expenses. ``I've known Gibson to call up and threaten to kick people's ass if the American Express bill wasn't paid on time,'' says a former N.A.A.C.P. administrator. ``He traveled first class all the time.'' This alleged high living occurred at a time when the N.A.A.C.P. was running up a $4.5 million deficit, furloughing 90 members of its staff and letting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of bills go unpaid.

Gibson's angry denial of any misappropriation indicates how shoddily the N.A.A.C.P. has been managed. He says his American Express bills were sent directly to the organization's executive director, who did not ask for any written explanation of what N.A.A.C.P. business Gibson was conducting before authorizing payment. When asked why he did not provide such customary justification for his expenditures as a list of the people he was entertaining (in expensive restaurants, while traveling to various cities and riding about in limousines), Gibson replied, ``We have knowledge of who they were.'' Nobody else does.

Reports that numerous creditors were threatening to sue the N.A.A.C.P. frightened the board last October into authorizing an independent audit of spending by Gibson and other N.A.A.C.P. officers. It was supposed to be finished by Feb. 18, when the organization meets to elect its leaders. But, say Gibson's critics, the chairman and his cronies--known inside the N.A.A.C.P. as ``the tribe''--stalled the hiring of an accounting firm until last week, when Coopers & Lybrand was finally hired. The audit will not include an examination of the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, an annually televised program that has lost more than $1 million over the past three years--largely because of huge bills for hotels, lavish meals and stretch limousines that board members enjoyed while visiting Hollywood for the ostensible purpose of making sure the production ran smoothly. According to a board member, last year's ceremony almost didn't take place because the accountant who tallied the ballots to determine the winners refused to release the results until he was paid--as did the company that manufactures the Oscar-like statues that are given to honorees. They got their money less than two hours before the show was due to start.

Dissident board members are now trying to replace Gibson and his clique with a slate headed by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers--but it's not certain they have the votes. Why did they wait so long to move against him? C. Delores Tucker, a prime mover behind the anti- Gibson offensive, admits that she and others have known about the alleged fiscal improprieties for years but did nothing about them--even though she says, ``Gibson was doing more damage to the N.A.A.C.P. than the Ku Klux Klan ever could.'' In fact, she and the others who filed suit did so only after discovering that, as directors, they could be held personally financially liable for the organization's fiscal miscues. Former N.A.A.C.P. staff members have another explanation. They say the critics did not speak up sooner out of fear of ``washing our dirty laundry in public.'' That's another way of saying they did not want the N.A.A.C.P. rank and file to know how badly its affairs were being handled.

Evers-Williams deserves one last shot at restoring the N.A.A.C.P.'s old luster. But its current leaders have made such a shambles of the group that it may not be worth saving. The money and effort required to get it back on its feet would be better invested in creating a new organization that could shape a civil rights agenda for the 21st century. The well-trained blacks who have shunned the N.A.A.C.P. in recent years would flock to it in droves if it would: 1) listen to their ideas, 2) administer its finances openly, 3) subject its officers to term limits so that no clique could gain a monopoly on power, and 4) recruit a staff from the best minds in black America. Such an organization could be based on the 2,200 N.A.A.C.P. chapters that already exist around the country, many of which remain vibrant champions of racial progress in their local communities. It would be so much like the N.A.A.C.P. used to be that it could keep the old initials--the New African American Campaign for Progress.