The NAACP's Slow Suicide

Last Tuesday (11/30) I noted that as Kweisi Mfume was stepping down as president of the increasingly irrelevant NAACP, that Chairman Julian Bond needed to go next.

At the time I wrote that, I said Mfume had to go "for allowing the organization's credibility to be damaged severely, to the point where many feel it is no longer a civil rights organization, but instead a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party."

Well, it looks like I might owe Mr. Mfume an apology, based upon this article.

It now seems that Mr. Mfume was trying to right a sinking ship, one that the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. NAACP apparently wants to scuttle.

According to the Human Events Online story, Mr. Mfume had been reaching out across the aisle, trying to build a working relationship with Republicans. Mfume nominated Condoleezza Rice for an NAACP Image Award in 2003, and had realized that by voting lockstep Democrat in every election, black voters had given away their political bartering power.

After the election last month Mfume sent a letter to President Bush mapping out ways they could work together to help the community, which was against the wishes of a rabid Julian Bond.

Bond then had Mfume forced out, for this apparent sin of trying to bring political diversity to a once-meaningful civil rights organization.

Thank you Mr. Mfume, for trying to reach out and make the NAACP relevant again.

I'm sorry it didn't work out.