Power Play

Mutiny at the N.A.A.C.P.

For three-quarters of a century the N.A.A.C.P., resolutely mainstream in its struggles for racial justice, has been the most important U.S. civil rights organization. Yet the group has been adrift for almost a decade, and its membership has been halved to fewer than 200,000. Now open mutiny seems to have broken out at the top. With a curt letter sent last week, Margaret Bush Wilson, chairman of the N.A.A.C.P. board of directors, summarily suspended Executive Director Benjamin Hooks.

Hooks, a former Federal Communications Commissioner who has battled with Wilson since taking the N.A.A.C.P. job in 1977, stood fast, refusing to hand over power to Wilson's designated caretaker. Said Hooks: "I'm still functioning." And he may still be next week, after the 64-member board, loaded with Hooks partisans, has an emergency meeting. "We will have to decide who is the real spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P.," said the Rev. Edward Hailes, a board member.

The conflict is ironic, given the strikingly similar backgrounds of Wilson, 64, from St. Louis, and Hooks, 58, a Memphis native: both are lawyers who grew up in middle-class black families in Mississippi River cities during the Depression. Wilson began her latest maneuvers against Hooks at a special board meeting she convened last month. There she bitterly accused him of mismanagement, which she says has tarnished the N.A.A.C.P.'S reputation within the philanthropic community. She had the board pass a resolution reaffirming her position at the top of the N.A.A.C.P. hierarchy.

Most board members, whatever their qualms about Hooks, are fuming at Wilson, and say they did not realize that she intended last month's endorsement as a prelude to last week's power grab. Her main charge is that Hooks has refused to release records that would, she says, document his administrative bungling. But, said Hailes, "I don't know of any materials requested that have not been turned over." Indeed, it looks now as though Wilson is the one in jeopardy. "If there is a showdown," predicted Board Member Hazel Dukes, "the vote would be 61 for Hooks to 3 for Wilson." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.