The NAACP board of directors fired Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. last night in a special meeting called to discuss his management of the civil rights group and his use of organization funds to secretly pay a former aide who accused him of sexual harassment.
The decision came about 6 p.m., toward the end of a five-hour, closed-door meeting attended by 57 of the 64 board members. The show-of-hands vote was overwhelming.
Emerging from the NAACP headquarters building several hours later, board Chairman William F. Gibson said Dr. Chavis "had embarked on a course of conduct that is inimical to the best interests of the organization. His service in regards to working in the NAACP was best served by severance."
Earl T. Shinhoster, the NAACP's national field secretary, was named interim executive director. An oversight committee was to be appointed to monitor the operations of the nation's oldest civil rights organization.
Mr. Shinhoster, a former NAACP southeast region director, was one of four finalists with whom Dr. Chavis competed for the job last year.
Looking drawn and tense as he stood in a crush of people, Dr. Gibson said no one issue caused the board to fire the 46-year-old minister, who was named the group's executive director in April 1993.
"It was an accumulation," said Dr. Gibson, who had been one of Dr. Chavis' key allies until the settlement with a former aide became public in June. "This decision was not easy."
Dr. Chavis was not present when the board voted to oust him. When he came out of the building sometime after 10 p.m., the fired executive director stood in the light of a full moon, his wife, Martha, beside him, to address a waiting crowd of reporters.
"I am obviously somewhat shaken by the vote of the board of directors," said Dr. Chavis. "I have made a commitment to the freedom struggle of African-Americans as well as the freedom struggle of people of African descent around the world.
"I stand tonight a victim of an orchestrated campaign to defame my character and my integrity."
Dr. Chavis' fighting spirit -- an ardor that punctuated his public appearances in the past two weeks -- surfaced again last night.
"I am undaunted, unbowed and unbossed," Dr. Chavis said. "I do not intend to make any statements against the NAACP. I believe the overwhelming majority of members of the NAACP are good and honorable sisters and brothers. I love them. And they will always have my support."
As evidence of his commitment to the struggle, Dr. Chavis announced that the African-American summit of which he intended to be host as NAACP executive director would go on today anyway. It is to be held at Bethel AME Church at Druid Hill and Lanvale streets.
"I'm not going to let the lynching that took place here stop us from having the summit," he said. "I intend to live the rest of my life fighting for freedom. . . . I intend to rise from this moment. I don't intend to allow my good name to be drug in the mud by anybody or anything."
With that, Dr. Chavis returned to the NAACP's headquarters building. He took no questions.
The conclusion of yesterday's special meeting did not only end the short career of one of the NAACP's most colorful and controversial leaders. It ended one of the greatest internal crises in the 85-year history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The emergency meeting was convened after it was reported that Dr. Chavis made a secret deal to pay a former aide, Mary E. Stansel, up to $332,400 to avoid being sued on sexual discrimination and harassment charges.
"This is a sad and tragic time for the NAACP, and for Ben Chavis and his family personally," said the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, Dr. Chavis' predecessor at the NAACP. "The NAACP, through its long and glorious history, has had a number of problems but never one like this. But as we have recovered from other situations, we can recover from this."
Board member Joseph E. Madison, a prime organizer of the move to oust Dr. Chavis, described the board meeting as "very professional." He said Dr. Chavis answered questions for about an hour and "attacked no one."
Mr. Madison, a Washington broadcaster, said that "there was nothing really new" in the evidence presented about Dr. Chavis' handling of the Stansel case. But as Mr. Madison spoke with reporters outside NAACP headquarters, the emotion surrounding this meeting was evident in the voices of a handful of Chavis sympathizers. "Uncle Tom Madison," they shouted.
"You reap what you sow. That's what happened here," said Dr. Charles M. Butler, a board member from Coatesville, Pa. "He reaped what he sowed. There are going to be some changes made. We learned a lesson from this one."
Dr. Gibson said that the board would discuss with Dr. Chavis and his advisers "a separation and severeance agreement in order to bring this matter to a conclusion."
Anger and tears
Soon after the board vote last night, the lobby of the NAACP headquarters was jammed with Dr. Chavis' most ardent supporters, the youth members.
Some were angry. Some had tears in their eyes.
"We are upset, we are outraged," said Darnell Armstrong, a youth member from New York state. "We're going to clean house."
Holding up his NAACP membership card, Glenn Dowling of New York said, "As of next week you're going to see these returned to the national office."
Youth members from South and North Carolina were so upset that they crowded at the front door of the NAACP headquarters, hoping to get inside and persuade board members to keep Dr. Chavis, said Rodney Orange, president of the Baltimore NAACP branch and a Chavis supporter.
"We had to block the entrance to the room so they wouldn't charge in," he said.
But, he added, the reaction of the young people was "more sad than anything."
Chavis' counterattack
As the controversy built over the past few weeks, Dr. Chavis kept up a constant counterattack.
He charged that opponents of his "new direction" for the NAACP -- reaching out to young and alienated African-Americans, including followers of black separatist Louis Farrakhan -- had seized upon the controversy to "defame the NAACP, to defame me and to defame my leadership."
He vowed at a news conference Friday to give the board yesterday a complete report of the "orchestrated campaign" against him, "inclusive of documents, evidence, names, addresses, telephone numbers and fax numbers."
Some board members, who asked not to be identified, said before yesterday's meeting that they had the votes to oust Dr. Chavis.
According to the NAACP constitution, a two-thirds vote of those present and voting was needed to remove the executive director.
They said the executive director's credibility with the board -- already frayed before the Stansel case by a financial deficit of more than $3 million, Dr. Chavis' disputed claim of large gains in NAACP membership and other issues -- was damaged beyond repair.
But Chavis supporters were confident that once alone with the board, the fiery minister could sway members whose first impressions of his handling of the controversy came from what they considered negative reporting in the press.
The local toll
Mr. Orange said the dispute has taken a toll locally. Some corporate sponsors of the Baltimore branch's annual Freedom Fund banquet, scheduled for Sept. 21, awaited the board's decision on Dr. Chavis before committing to support the fund-raising event.
Mr. Orange said after speaking to yesterday's pro-Chavis rally outside the headquarters that "we should not base our support for the NAACP solely on the personality of the individual, but on our love for the association."
The rally -- aimed to show board members the executive #F director's ability to attract young members -- produced a small crowd, composed mainly of students. Nation of Islam members, followers of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. and family members of Dr. Chavis' wife, Martha, also attended.
The pro-Chavis forces marched past a battery of television cameras chanting, "If Chavis goes, we go," "No Chavis, no membership" and "Get them Negroes off the board!"
Kobi Little, 22, a past president of the NAACP chapter at the Johns Hopkins University, told supporters, "Ben Chavis has been able to mobilize the heretofore complacent masses.
"If Ben Chavis goes, the NAACP doesn't have to worry about anything else because it will be over," he said.
"The next brothers and sisters who take his place will be enslaved, beholden to the media, beholden to the corporations, a few egotistical, individualistic, self-centered board members who wish they were executive director," he said.
A daring choice
Dr. Chavis was a daring choice to be the NAACP's seventh executive director. He spent four years in prison in the 1970s in the firebombing of a white-owned Wilmington, N.C., grocery -- a conviction that was later thrown out -- and stood to the left of the mainstream civil rights movement.
NAACP sources say that Dr. Gibson originally favored the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, whom he had known since childhood in Greenville, S.C., but backed off when board members complained that Mr. Jackson's strong personality might put too much of his personal stamp on the NAACP. They also distrusted his management ability.
Ironically, those very issues have dogged Dr. Chavis.
While his dialogue with Mr. Farrakhan, beginning in the fall of 1993, made him controversial with white Americans, Dr. Chavis' reputation among board members suffered most after it was disclosed in May that the NAACP had accumulated a hefty deficit.
THE DECISION
The resolution adopted last night by the NAACP board of directors:
"WHEREAS, the executive director/CEO of the NAACP has embarked on a course of conduct which is inimical to the best interest of the association. NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved, that pursuant to Article V, Section E of the Constitution, the Board of Directors, effective forthwith, terminates the employment of Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. as executive director/CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Adopted this 20th day of August, 1994 at Baltimore, Maryland."