He's No Gentle Ben

By Jack E. White/Washington

Who is he? And why on earth would he want the job anyway? Those were the first questions many people asked when Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. became executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People last April. Chavis immediately provided some answers: he was a man of action with a sense of symbolism as well.

In his first three months on the job, Chavis has shaken up the N.A.A.C.P., trading its long-standing cautiousness for a new militancy. Only a day after his selection, he demonstrated the association's renewed concern for reaching the inner-city poor by journeying to violence-plagued housing projects in Los Angeles to help keep the peace as the city awaited the verdict in the federal trial of four police officers accused of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Chavis hopes to broaden the group's appeal to include Hispanics, Asian Americans and other "people of color" in the U.S., while converting the N.A.A.C.P. into a global human-rights organization by establishing chapters in Africa and the Caribbean. This week at its annual convention in Indianapolis, the N.A.A.C.P. plans to announce a "strategic alliance" with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Says Chavis: "Any organization that's contemplating being viable in the 21st century has to have a global consciousness."

The N.A.A.C.P. could use a boost. Under Chavis' predecessor, Benjamin Hooks, the group's influence sagged and membership dragged. The leadership spent almost as much energy beating down internal feuds as battling the Reagan and Bush administrations' attempts to turn back the clock on civil rights. Even the yearlong search for Hooks' replacement came close to a meltdown when Jesse Jackson abruptly withdrew his name from consideration just before the 64- member board of directors met to make its decision.

That left Chavis, the 45-year-old head of the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice, as the fallback choice to revive the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Before that he had been best- known as the leader of the Wilmington 10, a band of activists imprisoned for burning down a grocery store and conspiring to shoot at policemen during a 1971 civil rights protest in North Carolina. The convictions were thrown out by a federal judge in 1980 on the grounds that the testimony of prosecution witnesses had been coerced by police.

So far, Chavis' attention-getting tactics have won applause from many of the N.A.A.C.P.'s rank and file. But his quick start has rattled some of the association's Old Guard, who consider him too radical. Many resent the association's endorsement of President Bill Clinton's plan to lift the ban on gays in the military. Others criticize Chavis' scheme for going global as too grandiose for a group that has more than twice as many inactive members (1.2 million) as dues-paying participants (500,000).

Yet another embarrassing flap erupted last week after the N.A.A.C.P. signed a "fair share" agreement providing employment and business opportunities for blacks with Richardson Sports/Carolinas Stadium Corp., a group that is trying to bring a professional football franchise to Charlotte, North Carolina. In return, Chavis announced, the association would "do what we can to help" the group win the franchise. The deal outraged city officials and local N.A.A.C.P. leaders in Baltimore, Maryland, where the association has its national headquarters and which happens to be one of several cities competing against Charlotte for an expansion team. To still the outcry, Chavis was forced to backtrack, stating that the N.A.A.C.P. "does not favor any one city over the others."

Most unsettling to the critics are the resumes of the two men Chavis chose as his top assistants. As communications director he named Don Rojas, 40, who was press secretary to Maurice Bishop, the leftist leader of Grenada slain in a 1983 coup that led to the U.S. invasion of the island. As deputy director he picked Lewis Myers Jr., 45, a Chicago lawyer who served as general counsel to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for more than a decade. Some members fear that Rojas and Myers could frighten some of the N.A.A.C.P.'s allies. "Just wait till the Jews get hold of Myers' background," says a disgruntled veteran. "Of all the people he could have as his deputy, he had to find one with a Farrakhan connection."

Chavis defends his choice of Rojas and Myers. "The criterion that I used was not whether these persons were connected to controversial persons," he says. "The criterion I used was whether they bring a standard of excellence to their jobs." Even so, some within the N.A.A.C.P. say board members may try to reduce Chavis' authority to hire staff without first getting their O.K.

Chavis and his lieutenants insist that they want to retain the group's centrist image, even while revamping it for a new era. Says Myers: "We're not here to rock the boat, we're here to learn it." Perhaps, but such assurances have not done much to mollify the N.A.A.C.P.'s tradition-minded loyalists who fear that Chavis will run the association aground by steering too far to the left.