Washington -- Chairman William F. Gibson and his top crony drove another nail into the coffin of the NAACP Tuesday when they confirmed my November 11 report that they seek to purge the national board of members who ask embarrassing questions about possible corruption.
In a press release, T.H. Poole Sr., of Eustis, Florida, who describes himself as Dr. Gibson's "Speaker of the House," listed 37 other board members who he implied would back him and Dr. Gibson. He named board members Marc Stepp of Detroit and broadcaster Joe Madison of Silver Spring as targets for ouster for allegedly making statements to the media that are "inimical to the interests of the NAACP."
The move is astounding, since Mr. Stepp chairs the NAACP Budget Subcommittee for Emergency Fund-Raising which has recently raised some $400,000 toward wiping out a $4 million deficit. But Mr. Poole has moved to discredit the former international vice president of the United Automobile Workers, because Mr. Stepp keeps asking questions about how Mr. Poole and Dr. Gibson caused the NAACP to lose at least $1,282,000 in 1993 and 1994 on a Hollywood awards program.
After Mr. Poole's press release, Mr. Stepp was outraged and enraged. He told me that he is determined to get the facts about the lavish expenditures by Dr. Gibson, Mr. Poole and others in connection with their failed Image Awards scheme. Mr. Stepp says he demands to know what happened to a California bank account of about $50,000 reportedly set up with NAACP funds by the two men, along with two other NAACP directors, John Mance of Granada Hills, California, and Kelly Alexander Jr. of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch of the NAACP had run the Image Awards program successfully for more than 20 years, using it to force movie industry pooh-bahs to give a fairer shake to black actors, actresses and would-be producers and directors. In 1992, Dr. Gibson and Mr. Poole saw fame and syndicated fortunes of millions of dollars a year if they took over the Image Awards. So they ripped it away from the Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch, and cut then-Executive Director Benjamin Hooks and the national staff out of any control. The Image Awards became an NAACP board production.
The four cronies tried to storm Hollywood by limousine and borrowed money -- at least $1.5 million in bank lines of credit so they could buy broadcast time from NBC and pay "experts" to syndicate and sell ads for the program. Dr. Gibson, Mr. Poole and their allies lost the NAACP's shirt -- $692,000 in 1993 and $590,000 in 1994.
Mr. Poole's Tuesday press release and his remarks to a #i Baltimore Sun reporter bewildered NAACP staffers at the Baltimore headquarters. Some, even without pay, were working to put out fires such as a lawsuit by a Virginia limousine company to get some $3,000 that the NAACP owed it. Loyal staffers were not eager to advertise the fact that during the regime of Dr. Gibson and the recently-fired Executive Director Benjamin Chavis the limousine charges at the Red Top Sedan Service alone often ran to $10,000 a month.
Most of the NAACP directors on Mr. Poole's "silent majority" list of Gibson supporters have no idea of overall limousine costs, let alone the Beverly Hills luxury-hotel bills (of which I have copies) that put the NAACP at least $1.2 million in the red.
When Mr. Poole suckered the "silent 37" into signing his devious document about Messrs. Stepp and Madison, he never told them that they could be legally and financially liable for the Image Awards fiasco. Some directors have expressed outrage to me that Mr. Poole would insinuate that they favor purging the two men from the board, or that they had supported Dr. Gibson in any way beyond saying he ought not be ousted until an external audit of his spending is completed.
Those same board members were startled to learn that because of roadblocks set up by Dr. Gibson the audit they ordered on October 15 has not even begun.
Wednesday, Mr. Stepp issued a cry for help from Barbara Jordan, Gen. Colin Powell, Judge Leon Higginbotham and other black Americans of great distinction. He said they must volunteer to serve on a new board of directors and save the NAACP.
"Nothing less can lift it from the pit of mediocrity and meanness that this current leadership and board have driven it into," he said.
8, Carl T. Rowan is a syndicated columnist.