Amos and Andy in the NAACP
Staff Writer
2007-03-12
.bugnews.bloggieblog.com .
If you have not heard, Bruce S Gordon resigned from the CEO post of the NAACP. He did this after the NAACP image awards. At this point in time , the NAACP has no replacement for this post. There is more to this story then Gordon turning his “I Quit” letter into the board of the NACCP.
The NAACP has been around almost 100 years currently. Although it was started on the funds or mainstream philanthropist in America with the help of educated African American of that time with a Battle Royal feel to it, it has assisted the African American community with its struggle as much as it could. The NAACP cannot obtain property or create an economic infrastructure due to the founding incorporation documents. This may explain how a corporate executive took the approach to expand the NAACP to have help services for its membership and, the community it represented. On the Steve Harvey Morning Show, Gordon stated the board was too old and did not reflect new ideas of the younger population. Gordon also pointed out that the board had too much influence on the day to day operations of the NAACP. Gordon wanted to have more economic outreach in the forms of educating to those with current wealth resources with little or no help to those without current wealth resources. Although Gordon is credited for connected the NAACP and the current White House administration, there is still a broken bridge between the over all struggle of current African American population and persons like Gordon along with the current NAACP.
Although Gordon may be a corporate leader because of his past executive post with Verizon, he may not have been a community leader. An example of this non community leadership was brought up by critics that did not want Gordon in this post. Juilian Bond may not have been one of the critics at the start , but he is one of them now based on this quote from Philanthropy News Digest. We want it to be a social justice organization; he wanted it to be more of a social service organization," Bond said. "Our mission is to fight racial discrimination and provide social justice. Social service organizations deal with the effects of racial discrimination. We deal with the beast itself. There are many organizations that provide social services. We say, 'Good for them.' But we are one of the very few that provide social justice. It is popular to say that we are in a post-civil rights period, but we don't believe that."
As the NAACP moves ahead and , the world tries to figure out who is AMOS and who is Andy in this non profit leadership struggle. The larger African American population has to deal with the day to day struggle with 1920’s views at the driving the ship.