NAACP considers a new approach

With Bruce S. Gordon's stellar background in corporate America, his installation as executive director of the NAACP at its 96th annual convention in Milwaukee could herald a new beginning for the venerable civil rights organization's relationship with the Bush administration.

Delegates will have the final vote on Gordon's appointment as executive director of the nation's oldest civil rights organization when it holds its convention July 9-14 at the Midwest Airlines Convention Center. The vote on his nomination is expected July 14.

Gordon already has indicated he wants to improve the NAACP's relationship with the Bush administration, a radical departure for a group known for its criticism of the president. But in doing so, the 59-year-old retired Verizon Communications executive may run the risk of pitting himself against some members who supported the NAACP's confrontational style with President Bush.

Delegates will get a chance to witness Gordon's style for the first time, as well as hear an array of speakers from across the political and religious spectrum, including some who have been critical of Bush on issues ranging from Social Security reform to the war in Iraq.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Rev. Jesse Jackson and former NAACP chief Benjamin Hooks are among the scheduled speakers.

Bush was invited to the group's national convention in Milwaukee, but the White House sent a letter to the NAACP indicating that he would not attend. But even with the rejection, it already is clear from Gordon's initial remarks that he wants to forge a new relationship between the NAACP and the Bush administration. Repositioning image

That gesture alone is a strong indication that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is seeking to position its image in line with the National Urban League, which opened lines of communications with the White House a year ago.

Last year, Bush was one of the headline speakers at the Urban League's national convention in Detroit. He has received invitations to five consecutive NAACP national conventions, and rejected them all, mainly due to the organization's caustic language with his administration and its policies.

Former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, a former U.S. representative who is now a candidate for the senate in Maryland, labeled Bush's black supporters "ventriloquist's dummies." NAACP board chairman Julian Bond has stridently attacked Bush's on his education, economic and Iraq policies. Last year, the Internal Revenue Service launched an investigation into the group's financial records.

In an interview Thursday, Gordon said although it is not necessary to agree on everything, a constructive relationship with the White House is in the interest of both sides.

Gordon said he has already taken steps to open the dialogue. "The process is in its very early stages, and I'm proceeding with a high level of optimism," he said.

But while Gordon is seeking common ground that "serves the mutual interests" of the administration and the NAACP, there are many within and outside of the organization who aren't so sure it is appropriate to extend an olive branch. Searching for new role

NAACP observers think Gordon's gesture toward improved relations with Bush is a sign the organization is searching for its soul, and a new role in America.

"The NAACP has been adrift," said Walter C. Farrell Jr., a professor of social welfare and associate director of urban investment strategies in the Kenan-Flagler Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

"It's all over the place . . . It doesn't have any coherent focus. They're trying to get back in the game, and they're hurting for money. But what's going to happen with the NAACP and its new leadership is a class war.

"Branches all over the country are basically run by the masses. The black middle class no longer provides its leadership. I think (Gordon) is going to try to track them to the mainstream, and there is a possibility there could be a fight, branch by branch." Local branches

Jerry Ann Hamilton, president of the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP, said she believes the local branches will respect the choice of the organization's leadership.

"I would hope that Gordon would continue to reach out to the Bush administration as we always have," Hamilton said. "I hope the new president will be effective in getting (Bush) to do this."

DeWayne Wickham, a columnist with USA Today, said it's the NAACP establishment, particularly its chairman, that wants to see a better working relationship with the White House.

Wickham, author of "Bill Clinton and Black America," who is also working on a NAACP book, currently titled: "A House Divided: Politics, Sex and the Struggle for Power Inside the NAACP," said, "Mfume's departure signaled a swinging of the power pendulum in the direction of the chairman. Bond is the important power in this organization at this time."

Whether it is subtle or an outright difference in strategy between the NAACP branches and its new leader, one thing is already clear about Gordon, say those who know him: He is one of only a few not to come from a religious, political or civil rights background. And his record in the corporate world is impeccable. Consensus builder

Gordon has been described as a consensus builder. And over a 35-year relationship with the telecommunication industry that steered Bell of Pennsylvania through a dizzying string of mergers that led to Verizon Communications, Gordon earned a reputation of becoming comfortable working within the system. Upon his retirement in 2003, Gordon was chief of Verizon's biggest division - retail markets.

One of the major themes of the NAACP will be a new economic thrust, Hamilton said.

The NAACP will take a position against Social Security reforms and a new aggressive push for economic justice. The theme of the convention will be "The Conscience of a Nation."

"That's the role that the NAACP has always played," she said. "And now we're making it known more than ever as we're going into more direct action all over the country. We're making it known that we have a presence and that our history speaks for itself.

"The major things that have been done for black people in this country have been done by the NAACP."

But how will the closer ties with Bush wash with the overall membership of the NAACP?"

Attorney Vel Phillips, a member of the NAACP for 62 years, isn't so sure it will be a clean sell. There may be a "smidgen" of truth to the fact that the organization should have dialogue with the White House, she said. At the same time, she isn't sold on the fact that the organization should abandon its role as the president's chief critic among African-Americans.

"I don't think it's that necessary to have a dialogue with a president who comes from a state that has the highest number (of death row inmates)," said Phillips, who in 1956 was the first African-American and woman elected to the Milwaukee Common Council.

"I don't know if it's important to have a relationship with him if the president has indicated that he really doesn't care, doesn't come to (our) conventions and doesn't want a relationship. We should keep doing what we're doing and have done for almost 100 years."

He sounds like to smart and business savvy for this group that just wants to gripe all of the time...

I know that the NAACP chapters here in Texas would probably pull out if he is elected and does reach out to the White House...too bad..

Mr. Gordon sounds like just the kind of leader that would help get some of the programs that President Bush talked about to the Urban League last year, going....

It's incoherent because it's an organization that has outlived its usefulness. I never have been nor will I ever be a member of the NAACP. I need them like I need a bottle of tanning lotion.

Bill Cosby is the one they need. He'd focus directly on black problems, and not on national left-wing political agendas.

Black America needs charter schools, vouchers, new economic zones, and help for the middle class. The Left isn't going to address any of those problems.

Flubbing idiots. Like it or not, this administration (GWB) has put more people of color in positions of REAL power than any Democrat ever did. These fools don't know their history, they don't know economics, and they damn sure don't know anything about Black people in 2005.

I'll believe the NAACP is serious about a new direction when they are actively working to do away with the organization altogether. It's past time. I really don't hold out much hope though, there are too many radical non-thinkers like Cornel West and most of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus - another organization that needs to do away with itself.

I need them like I need a bottle of tanning lotion.

lol

I wonder what Bill Cosby's opinion is of Bruce Gordon? If Cosby approves of him, then he's just what the NAALCP needs. In that case, of course, the NAALCP will reject him. They don't realize how much credibility they've lost in the last 10 years.

I don't know anything about Mr. Gordon, other that what was in this article...

I was just thinking that if he comes from a corporate background that he would probably agree with a lot of what Mr. Cosby says, re: using correct language, and dressing nicer, and planning for a future while in school which would require actually learning to read and such...

If you know more about Mr. Gordon, and that he is a lefty, then the members of the NAACP will really be in a bind, if they don't like his ideas but he is a lefty...

Also, I have gotten the impression that a lot of African-Americans aren't all that impressed with Bill Cosby's ideas.

note to new head of NAACP:

63 million voted for President Bush. He has brought in more high office, respectable 'people of color' in his 5 years than the Dims brought in in 25 years.

It is not to his advantage to criticize a President that truly seems color-blind, and shows by his example that any person who deserves respect, gains respect.

Any comment? The very act of reaching out to a sitting US president is controversial to some of these folks. That is incomprehensible to me.

Gordon already has indicated he wants to improve the NAACP's relationship with the Bush administration, a radical departure for a group known for its criticism of the president.

I'll believe it when I see it. Julian Bond ran Kwiesi Mfume out of the organization for holding out an olive branch to the Administration.

Yeah, sure.....reach out to W and punch him in the gut. Same old, same old....that's what they'll do.

Either that, or keep supporting the other party (losers for the foreseable future) that has given them nothing but lip service.

Well. The reporter is right in that there will be brawl within the NAACP and possibly over the reasons cited. But the bigger, more intimate details involve the Jesse Jackson "shakedown" style of quotas and threats as a means to "empowering black americans" versus those who see no other way but to take out and/or down all opposition to the NAACP "black first" agenda. Right now in many of the states, the economic brawl is between Black and Latino. And this is why Jackson is calling for a "meeting" of the minds between Black and Latino caucauses and orgs. Seen it already in CA. Black "power" lost to the Latino and Gay lobbies.

Hmmm. Maybe it's just me but I don't ordinarily honor the invitations of people who regularly tell me to f### off.

The first thing he could do is put a stop to using the Confederate battle flag as a whipping post.

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