December 9, 2004 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Following the surprise resignation last week of its high-profile president, Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP was preparing to seek a successor even as it coped with an Internal Revenue Service investigation into its activities and worked to strengthen its finances and membership rolls.
Mr. Mfume, a former U.S. congressman, became president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1996, when the organization was mired in a $3.2-million debt and faced internal turmoil. He will step down on January 1 and then serve as a consultant until July 1 to assist the organization’s next leader. The NAACP’s general counsel, Dennis Hayes, will serve as interim president.
Mr. Mfume said he was leaving for personal reasons. “I just need a break, I need a vacation,” he told a news conference at the NAACP headquarters in Baltimore.
“For the last nine years, I’ve had the honor and privilege to help revive and restore the nation’s oldest and largest civil-rights organization,” he said. “The people I have met along the way and the lessons I have learned have been invaluable, but sadly for me the time has come to set sail and to chart a new course.”
The NAACP’s chairman, Julian Bond, said he was saddened by Mr. Mfume’s departure. “Kweisi Mfume came to the NAACP when we were nearly bankrupt and our reputation under siege,” said Mr. Bond. “In short order he, and our former chair, Myrlie Evers-Williams, restored us to solvency and to primacy among civil-rights organizations.”
IRS Review
In recent years, critics have complained that the organization has suffered from internal dissent and has faded from the front ranks of the civil-rights struggle, said DeWayne Wickham, a columnist for USA Today who is writing a book on the NAACP.
What’s more, Mr. Wickham wrote last week, Mr. Mfume’s departure came “amid long-running rumors of bad blood” between Mr. Mfume and Mr. Bond.
Others wondered if Mr. Mfume’s departure was tied to the October announcement by the NAACP that the IRS was reviewing whether the organization had illegally intervened in a political campaign through a speech by Mr. Bond. The NAACP has said that it did nothing wrong, but the IRS investigation prompted many legal experts and nonprofit officials to worry that the tax status of other charities could now be in jeopardy (The Chronicle, November 11).
Mr. Mfume, however, denied that organizational problems or the IRS inquiry affected his decision to resign. “This is not about some internal squabble,” he said.
Asked in an interview if the relationship between Mr. Mfume and Mr. Bond had been difficult, Francisco L. Borges, who has been a member of the NAACP’s board for 11 years and now serves as the organization’s treasurer, said that “the two of them were an extraordinary pair who worked together very well. Their roles were complementary and their skills were complementary.”
Mr. Borges said that the NAACP will take care in choosing Mr. Mfume’s successor. “The board will take some time to determine the qualities for Kweisi’s replacement,” he said, “given where the organization is today and what the challenges are going forward.”
Brennen Jensen contributed to this article.
