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President’s exit reveals divide over NAACP’s mission
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| Contributor | The Sunset Provision |
| Last Edited | The Sunset Provision Mar 06, 2007 11:30am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Columbus Dispatch |
| News Date | Tuesday, March 6, 2007 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Bruce S. Gordon quit as NAACP president after clashing with the board over the group’s modern-day mission, a move that highlights a stubborn problem for activists: how to do civil-rights work decades after the movement’s peak.
Should the NAACP have allowed Gordon, as Chairman Julian Bond put it, to "pull (them) into the post-civil rights period? "
Bond firmly rejected the idea.
"We’re not post-civil rights," he said. "The struggle continues."
Bond and other members of the 64-person board he leads believe that, though dramatic gains have been made in race relations since the 1950s, the movement has not yet completed its task — and won’t until persistent racial gaps in achievement and opportunity disappear.
Few American blacks would quibble that equality remains an unfulfilled dream.
Gordon recognizes that, too. He often sparked applause among NAACP rank-and-file when he paraphrased Charles Dickens, telling them that, "for African-Americans, this is the best of times and the worst of times."
But how to address the "worst" part?
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, since its founding in 1909, has focused on advocacy — raising public awareness of inequality — not service. For instance, to fight black unemployment, the Baltimore-based group would hold protest marches, gather signatures and lobby elected officials for better public policy. It would not offer skills training or make job referrals.
But from the start of his presidency, Gordon made clear he wanted to do more of the latter — and he repeatedly resisted being reined in by the NAACP’s traditional mission or its enforcement body, the board of directors.
He rankled many board members when he traveled the country with a slide show detailing his plans for providing social services.
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