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BALTIMORE (AP) -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume is stepping down as the head of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group, a spokesman said Tuesday. Mfume plans to make the formal announcement at a news conference later Tuesday, communications director John White said. The organization's legal counsel, Dennis Hayes, will serve as interim president while a national search is conducted, he said. Advertisement White would not say why Mfume was stepping down and said Mfume would not comment until the midday news conference. Mfume, 56, has been president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since...

COMMENTARY Why should Bush speak to a hostile group that has outlived its usefulness? Last week, for the fourth year in a row, President Bush declined the NAACP's invitation to speak at its annual convention. Predictably, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume railed that the Bush administration failed to recognize the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group as being significant or important in any way. The sad thing is, the Bush administration's attitude toward the group is justified. The NAACP is stuck in a mind-set that worked 30 years ago but makes little sense today. Mfume and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond...

ESPN.com news services Rush Limbaugh's comments Sunday on ESPN's NFL pregame show regarding Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb have created a firestorm of controversy. And the reaction of many prominent personalities seems to be one thing: Fire Rush. As it turned out, ESPN didn't have the option. Limbaugh resigned late Wednesday night from NFL Sunday Countdown. ESPN accepted the resignation. Prior to the move, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark urged ESPN to fire Limbaugh. Clark, a retired Army general who entered the race Sept. 17, called the remarks "hateful and ignorant speech." "There can be no excuse for such statements. Mr....

Poor Joe Lieberman. Ever since he burst on the national scene three years ago as Al Gore's vice presidential running mate, he's been repeatedly called on the carpet by blacks. Thursday, he apologized to the NAACP for missing the group's candidate forum earlier this week in Miami. He has nothing to feel sorry for. The NAACP and black Democrats have long slammed him for his support of state-funded school vouchers allowing parents to move children from public to private schools and for his 1998 support for California's Proposition 209, which banned state-funded affirmative action programs. These are the two litmus-test...

A few days after being declared "persona non grata" by the NAACP, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman suggested in a speech to the group that its leader, Kweisi Mfume, would make a good Supreme Court justice, the New Republic reported. Mfume, however, has never been to law school. Sen. Joe Lieberman Lieberman had upset the civil-rights leader by skipping a candidate forum at its national convention Sunday, the magazine reported. The Connecticut senator called Mfume the next day to apologize and agreed to come to Miami to speak to the convention Wednesday night. After an apology to the group and...

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Three of the Democrats' nine presidential contenders drew the wrath of the president of the NAACP on Monday for skipping the group's candidate forum, reflecting a growing sentiment among blacks that their loyalty to the Democratic Party is being taken for granted. The six Democratic presidential hopefuls shared the stage with four empty chairs, each labeled with the name of a White House candidate who didn't make it. They were President Bush (news - web sites) and Democrats Joe Lieberman (news - web sites), Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) and Dennis Kucinich. While Bush's absence...

NAACP President Assails Three Democrats By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:28 p.m. ET MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume criticized Democratic presidential candidates Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman and Dennis Kucinich on Monday for skipping the group's presidential forum, saying the three have become ``persona non grata'' among black voters. Mfume lashed out at the three during a speech to about 1,000 gathered for the NAACP's convention. Each time Mfume mentioned their name an organmaster played a death knell chord. ``In essence, you now have become persona non grata,'' he said. ``Your political capital is the equivalent...

FEBRUARY 01, 04:35 ET NAACP Calls for New Emmett Till ProbeBy RON HARRIST Associated Press Writer JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The NAACP is calling for prosecutors to reopen the Emmett Till murder case, a possibility the Mississippi attorney general says is remote because the years have wiped away the evidence in the black teenager's 1955 slaying. The call for a renewed investigation follows a PBS documentary last month about the killing, which became a catalyst for the civil rights movement. The film included the recollections of Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, who died last month at age 81 in...

BALTIMORE -- Kweisi Mfume, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), accused newspapers of not doing enough to recruit and retain minorities and urged editors meeting here this week to "support opportunity" for minority journalists. Mfume, a former Baltimore-area congressman, made his remarks during the annual Associated Press Managing Editors conference. He also urged editors not to think of the NAACP only for stories related to so-called "black issues." "Often times, the NAACP is relegated to the civil rights reporter and coverage is generated by what happens in the black community," Mfume told...

  The Campaign to Control America's VoteLiberal Group Leads Fight Against Bush Judicial Nominees and School ChoiceBy Patrick J. ReillySummary: Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen is the latest victim of People for the American Way's campaign against President Bush's judicial nominees. On September 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 10-9 party-line vote rejected her nomination to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. When the electronic voting machines introduced in last month's Florida primary elections failed to correct the voting irregularities that appeared during the state's 2000 presidential election, People for the American Way (PFAW)...

HOUSTON — An NAACP report inspired by the 2000 presidential election, when thousands of minority voters' ballots didn't count, has found that most states have made little progress in reforming their election systems. Six states received failing grades in an NAACP report released Monday, though some officials immediately disputed the findings. The states that received an F were Delaware, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont. Florida, where the results of the 2000 presidential race remained in dispute for more than a month, got a D. "It was disappointing to look at the grades of some of the states knowing...

NAACP president Kweisi Mfume says leaders at the civil rights organization are firmly behind local protests over the Confederate flag, "If South Carolinians want to put it in their backyard and hoist it in the air, that's their business, but when you take a symbol of hate and division and you then put it on the ground, paid for by all of the citizens in this state, that's our business." Mfume visited a welcome center on Interstate 77 near Fort Mill on Friday to support members who are picketing because the Confederate flag continues to fly on State House grounds....