After the Revolution

By SYLVESTER MONROE/BALTIMORE

Myrlie Evers had spent 48 hours at the bedside of her terminally ill husband, Walter Williams. She struggled over a dilemma. She wanted to stay with him at the hospital in Portland, Oregon, but she was a board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and an emergency meeting had been called. It was across the country, in Baltimore. Should she even think of going? Her husband gave her his answer: "That meeting is too important. You have to be there."

The Saturday meeting indeed proved dramatic. With a voice vote and show of hands, the N.A.A.C.P. board, with 59 of 64 members present, overwhelmingly decided to oust its executive director Benjamin Chavis Jr., 46, who had been beleaguered by tales of sexual harassment and financial mismanagement. Preparations had been tense, with the Nation of Islam providing security for Chavis even as 200 of his backers demonstrated their support. Earlier some anti-Chavis board members said they had received threats. However, in spite of an hour-long speech in his own defense, Chavis was unable to reverse his fate; board members Hazel Dukes and Joe Madison drew up a resolution asking him to step down effective immediately. When rumors spread that Chavis was out, 20 of his young supporters attempted to rush the meeting and were prevented from entering only when N.A.A.C.P. staff members blocked the entrance. Several Chavis supporters declared they were going to quit the organization.

While Chavis was a primary focus, the special, closed-door session was as much about the future purpose of the 85-year-old civil-rights organization. The N.A.A.C.P. is saddled with a budget deficit of between $3 million and $4 million. Earlier last week the Ford Foundation, a longtime supporter, froze the first half of a two-year $500,000 grant because of concerns about the organization's management. Several N.A.A.C.P. chapters have suspended dues payments for essentially the same reason. Meanwhile, even as other civil- rights organizations have reshaped their agendas, the N.A.A.C.P. flounders in histrionics and glitzy but pointless ceremonials. Says Evers: "It's the most critical period in the organization's history."

Chavis' troubles began in June when Mary Stansel, 49, his former administrative assistant, sued him and the N.A.A.C.P. for sexual discrimination and harassment. The board was furious over a $332,400 settlement offered to Stansel without its knowledge. (A similar charge against Chavis by his wife's former secretary was defused amicably last week.) Many board members had previously complained of Chavis' management style and, more significantly, his public embrace of the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan.

Yet the doubts about Chavis ran deeper. "It's not just about sexual harassment and embracing Farrakhan," says a critic. "It is absolute financial mismanagement. The board is dealing with a whole range of lies that make them question his integrity and financial responsibility." Among the misrepresentations, critics charged, were Chavis' claims of inheriting a $2 million deficit from predecessor Benjamin Hooks. "There was no deficit," Hooks contends. "I left him a $600,000 surplus. What put him in a deficit was that he spent $1.9 million more than was budgeted and didn't raise any more money." Says another former high-level N.A.A.C.P. staff member: "Chavis and crew refused to deal with the reality that the N.A.A.C.P. is not a rich organization. The first thing they all did was ask for credit cards."

Others questioned Chavis' claim of increasing N.A.A.C.P. membership from 490,000 to more than 600,000, including 100,000 new youth members. The more accurate figures, noted in an internal report, according to another Chavis critic, are that the actual membership is 401,000 and the youth membership only 41,000.

But more important than the quality of leadership is the question, Of what use is the N.A.A.C.P. -- or any other traditional black civil-rights organizations -- now that most legal racial barriers to housing, education and the political arena have been removed? "There is no problem in my mind justifying the need ((for civil-rights organizations))," says Vernon Jordan, the Washington power broker who served as president of the National Urban League until 1981. "But when you have removed the barriers, then you have got to figure out how to deal with the debris. We did make the wall crumble, but I am not sure we have effectively decided how to deal with the leftover from the crumbling wall." Other civil-rights organizations have adjusted their agendas. The National Urban League, for example, is trying to raise its profile by fighting poverty as well as combating prejudice.

Can the N.A.A.C.P. turn itself around and set a new course? Says Shannon Reeves, 26, the group's southwest regional director: "The challenge right now for the N.A.A.C.P. is to go back to what got us here." His office receives 200 calls a day from people seeking legal assistance. "The fact of the matter is, black folk in America don't care about our philosophical debates. They don't care who's on the board. They don't care who the executive director is." He adds, "All I know is that on Monday morning, I am going to work, because those 200 phone calls will still be coming in."