NEW YORK -- By a single vote, the NAACP board ousted Chairman William F. Gibson yesterday and installed Myrlie B. Evers-Williams as the leader of the nation's largest civil rights group.
The 30-29 vote, taken behind closed doors on a secret ballot, capped months of rancor within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People over reports that Dr. Gibson racked up $800,000 in extravagant expenses while the NAACP went $4 million in debt.
The action came just hours after 800 members of the organization's rank and file overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding, no-confidence motion against Dr. Gibson.
Enolia P. McMillan, a 90-year-old board member from Baltimore and a past national NAACP president, made the no-confidence motion at the end of the general membership meeting. She urged the members to "express our lack of confidence in the leadership, which could clear the way for the board to do something about it."
"I wanted to be here to cast my one vote," Mrs. McMillan said after Dr. Gibson was ousted by the board. "I really didn't think it [the board's single-vote margin] would be that close, and I'm still trying to figure out why. For me the decision would not have been so difficult."
Despite the no-confidence vote, Gibson supporters had continued to believe he would win re-election when it came time for the board to vote.
Mrs. Evers-Williams, 61, of Bend, Ore., is a former college administrator, corporate executive and public official. She is the widow of Medgar Evers, the NAACP Mississippi field secretary who was assassinated by a white supremacist in 1963.
The new leader of the Baltimore-based NAACP pledged a "fresh start" for the troubled organization.
In recent months, its financial survival and allegations of misuse of funds by Dr. Gibson, have overshadowed its voice on civil rights issues, miring the organization in one of the worst crises of its 86-year history.
"It is an emotional time for me, but I can't be emotional for too long because I know we have too much to do, and I see your signs, 'Clean House,' " she told a rally of jubilant supporters last night.
Calling the Republican-controlled 104th Congress a "dangerous one," Mrs. Evers-Williams said: "We in this organization will be able to make Newt old," referring to House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Word of Mrs. Evers-Williams' election was received with rejoicing and shouts of "Free at last!" from Gibson opponents camped outside the hotel ballroom where the board met.
"The people spoke today. One vote can make a difference," said C. DeLores Tucker, a leading Gibson opponent. "My reaction is one word: Hallelujah!"
An ebullient W. Gregory Wims, president of the Maryland NAACP, said: "The people's voice has been heard. We will work diligently to raise money and membership under the leadership of Mrs. Evers."
NAACP Vice Chairman Ben Andrews announced Mrs. Evers-Williams' victory after designated tellers for the candidates counted the paper ballots of board members. The reaction was muted; Dr. Gibson congratulated the winner cordially, said staff members who were present.
Dr. Gibson, 61, a South Carolina dentist, was not available for comment last night.
"It was an evenly divided board. I thought he might hang in," said T. H. Poole Sr., a Gibson ally whose management of the money-losing NAACP "Image Awards" television show became a major issue. Mr. Poole had earlier said a "silent majority" of 39 board members backed Dr. Gibson.
Supporters of Mrs. Evers-Williams said several board members apparently switched to her side in the last 24 hours.
The presence of Owen Bieber, president of the United Auto Workers and a supporter of Mrs. Evers-Williams, might have been decisive. The union leader rarely has attended board meetings.
Several newly elected board members, including civil rights activist Julian Bond, a leading Gibson critic, were not eligible to vote for a chairman.
Having been elected, Mrs. Evers-Williams assumed the leadership of the board as it chose its other officers. Rupert Richardson, a holdover from the Gibson regime, was re-elected president; Francisco Borges, former Connecticut state treasurer, is the new treasurer, and Franklin Breckenridge, an Indiana lawyer, was elected vice chairman.
Dr. Gibson's board opponents had long urged Mrs. Evers-Williams to challenge the chairman.
Board member Joseph E. Madison recalled urging her to run on June 12, 1994, the 31st anniversary of Medgar Evers' death, as they stood at his grave in Arlington National Cemetery. Mr. Madison said her husband had died for the NAACP and that she could not now let the NAACP die.
Mrs. Evers-Williams, who was living in semiretirement in Oregon, was not keen on the idea. Her husband, Walter Williams, a retired California longshoreman and union organizer, has prostate cancer and needs her care. In October, she told the board in Baltimore that, despite rumors to the contrary, she had no plans to run.
But eventually, with her husband's support, Mrs. Evers-Williams was persuaded to challenge Dr. Gibson. She had an ideal mix of attributes as a candidate: She belonged to no board faction; she was a woman with an impressive resume, and she had impeccable NAACP credentials.
Mrs. Evers-Williams announced her candidacy on Feb. 7. She ran on a platform of "restoration," seeking to reunify the NAACP board, rebuild the group's financial accountability, renew its credibility among donors, and revive its membership by reaching out to young and disaffected blacks.
Her election capped an emotional day that began with the earlier rank-and-file meeting. With members chanting "Gibson must go!," the pressure began to build for ousting Dr. Gibson.
The NAACP chairman impassively regarded the proceedings over his bifocals. But long before the no-confidence vote, he quietly walked out of the meeting, scrapping a scheduled speech.
After the 3 1/2 -hour meeting led to the no-confidence vote, Mrs. Evers-Williams declared: "The people who have helped to make this association what it is as the grass-roots level spoke loud and clear."
Michael Meyers, leader of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a fierce Gibson critic, said Mrs. McMillan was chosen to make the no-confidence motion as an elder of the association whom no one would dare to rule out of order.
"It worked," he said.
The NAACP members were in a rebellious mood, refusing to give what normally would have been pro-forma approval to the
financial report of Treasurer Jerry L. Maulden.
zTC Mr. Maulden, an Arkansas utility executive, reported that the NAACP had total income of $17.2 million in 1994 and expenses of $19.6 million for a deficit last year alone of $2.4 million. Unpaid bills remain from previous years.
The treasurer was unable to explain in detail the $580,000 loss from the 1994 "Image Awards," a Hollywood television show that was under direct board control and has become a symbol of the leadership's alleged financial mismanagement.
Of nearly $2.3 million in Image Awards expenses, $1.6 million was listed in a category identified only as "fees."
When Mr. Poole, chairman of the Image Awards Committee, gave a muddled explanation of some of the finances, members hooted in disbelief.
For much of Dr. Gibson's nearly 10 years as chairman, he was little known beyond the NAACP, working in the shadow of the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, the former executive director.
Dr. Gibson became chairman in 1985 upon the death of his predecessor and mentor, Kelly M. Alexander Sr., a North Carolina undertaker. The next year Dr. Gibson was elected chairman.
In 1992, in a sign that he had consolidated power on the board, Dr. Gibson won a bitter battle over critics who tried to limit the chairman's term to six years.
The big losers in the fight were Hazel N. Dukes, who was voted out as NAACP president, and Mr. Bond, who lost his board seat. They became leaders of this year's attempt to oust Dr. Gibson.
In 1993, when the NAACP picked the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. to replace the retiring Dr. Hooks, Dr. Gibson assumed such a visible role that critics faulted the NAACP for "two-headed management."
Dr. Gibson joined the young executive director at appearances nationwide. In 1993 alone, the chairman amassed expenses of ** more than $100,000, according to internal documents obtained by syndicated columnist Carl T. Rowan.
The chairman, long regarded as a civil rights moderate, enthusiastically supported Dr. Chavis' moves to reach out to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and to lure black youth to the NAACP, whose membership was aging. He played a visible role alongside Dr. Chavis at a June black leadership summit featuring Minister Farrakhan at the NAACP's Baltimore headquarters.
Meanwhile, the organization sank deeper into debt, partly as a result of the leaders' travels. In May 1994, the board was shocked to learn that the NAACP had a $2.7 million deficit. The largest single contributor to the debt was the "Image Awards" show, which lost $1.4 million in the three years since the board took it over.
Nevertheless, Dr. Gibson and Dr. Chavis were able to brush off critics' attempts to make the deficit a major issue at the NAACP's July 1994 convention in Chicago.
Two weeks later, the NAACP was plunged into a crisis of confidence from which yesterday's vote may allow it to escape. It was revealed that Dr. Chavis had secretly committed up to $332,400 in NAACP funds to settle a threatened sexual harassment suit by Mary E. Stansel, a former aide.
Dr. Gibson, who said he knew nothing about the deal (later denied by Dr. Chavis), at first stood by Dr. Chavis. But as criticism mounted, the chairman freed board members to vote their consciences at an Aug. 20 meeting in Baltimore. They fired Dr. Chavis.
But the chairman's credibility was gravely wounded. Just as it seemed the controversy was passing, Mr. Rowan wrote in October the first of a dozen columns detailing Dr. Gibson's spending as chairman and demanding his ouster.
Last Sunday, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" gave the charges against Dr. Gibson national exposure and reported, among other questionable expenditures, that the chairman had charged a $600 briefcase to the NAACP.