ANOTHER view, from the editorial page (Feb. 22) of the Wilmington News Journal:
"In her moment of triumph, Myrlie Evers-Williams, the new chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, blew a kiss to a packed ballroom in a New York hotel over the weekend, and it roared its approval.
"That act probably means far more than the brusque, 'It's time to clean house. Where's my broom?' sound-bite most of us have seen repeatedly on TV.
"Dr. William F. Gibson, the South Carolina dentist who had been chairman for a decade, represented a class schism that has existed on the board for years. His rise symbolized taking the organization's power out of the hands of what he derisively called 'the elites,' meaning those people who had traditionally vTC held power in the NAACP -- and shared it with white power brokers and financiers.
"Dr. Gibson's intentions were above reproach. His 30 years of service with the organization, much of it laboring invisibly in the South during the worst of the struggles to end segregation, cannot be undervalued. But his leadership style turned the board inward upon itself, made it a political cauldron dominated by people from the South and Midwest who were blindly loyal to him because he had brought them, as well as himself, to power. Dr. Gibson raised jealousy and retribution to an art form, and it led to endless internecine warfare and inevitably to the disasters that befell the organization.
"Now comes a time for healing, internally and externally. Much has to be done. Ms. Evers-Williams has a reputation for strong administrative skills built through a long career of both public and private service. Now she will need skills to speak credibly and coherently to the nation about the concerns of African-Americans in a tide of political change. Dr. Gibson never developed that skill."