Black leadership in crisis - NAACP; Congressional Black Caucus - Column

Progressive, The, Oct, 1994 by Adolph Jr. Reed

The debacle of Ben Chavis's appointment and tenure at the NAACP, finally, mercifully ended, underscores the troubled state of the national civilrights and race-relations establishment. And, yes, there is no question but that forces outside the NAACP--foundations, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and others--attempted in politically objectionable ways to fuel the pressure that brought Chavis down. Nonetheless, he was rightly dismissed for his transgressions against the board and the organization as well as for the flamboyant emptiness of his leadership--not because of the evil machinations of "forces outside the African-American community," as he has alleged in pathetic attempts to make himself a martyr of the movement. (His references to his "crucifixion" and "resurrection" suggested an unusually robust self-esteem, but shouldn't he have heard echoses of Clarence Thomas in calling his dismissal a "lynching"?)

Public attention to Chavis focused on allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination made against him, his apparent attempt to deceive the board about the exorbitant cash settlement he made with his accuser, and, of course, his pointless and silly posturing with black nationalist clowns, including protofascist Louis Farrakhan and other self-appointed "black leaders." At least equally disturbing, however, was his underhanded support for NAFTA, which included surreptitiously lobbying blacks in Congress even after the NAACP board declared its opposition to the trade agreement. Perhaps worse was Chavis's selling out of his main activist affiliation, the movement against environmental racism, by pimping for a group formed by oil and chemical companies to ease Superfund regulations.

Chavis was appointed in the hopes that his identification with grass-roots activism would energize the NAACP and broaden its appeal to politically alienated young people. Benjamin Hooks, his predecessor, had been hired for pretty much the same reasons twenty years ago.

This focus on image over both political substance and efficacy reflects the problem that the organization, like the civil-rights elite in general, has had in defining its mission since the defeat of de jure segregation. This problem has been exacerbated by the postwar NAACP's opposition to radicalism. It has only gotten worse as the Reagan/Bush/Clinton Administrations have turned away from managing race relations through insider negotiation. No more guaranteed access to the White House, no more automatic concessions to black interests (however defined).

The political circumstances require broad social vision and a concrete political agenda. Chavis has neither. Instead, he represents the worst devolution of 1960s activism--substituting symbolic gestures and the illusion of mass mobilization for a coherent political program.

In contrast to Chavis and the NAACP under his leadership, the Congressional Black Caucus has come closer to such a coherent political program. The Caucus has distinguished itself as a body by consistent identification with the most decent, reasonable, and humane options possible in the national political mainstream. The alternative budget the Caucus prepares annually emphasizes human needs and is a model of the premise that government can and should be a tool for making people's lives better and reducing inequality.

The Caucus's finest hours, though, may very well have come in response to Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court and the NAFTA vote. While national civil-rights organizations temporized and the likes of Maya Angelou and Catharine MacKinnon speculated publicly that Thomas would turn out to be all right because he's black and used to be poor, the Caucus moved swiftly and aggressively to oppose his confirmation.

Representatives Craig Washington, John Conyers, and John Lewis argued eloquently and unambiguously at the Senate hearing that Thomas is unfit to serve on the highest court. Their testimony focused carefully on law and public policy and--calling racial opportunism by its name--emphatically rejected the sophistries about Thomas deserving a chance to serve on the Court because he had been a poor black child with a loving grandfather. Subsequent developments have shown how much better off the country would be if the Caucus's position had carried the day.

Similarly, a heavy majority of caucus members argued and voted against NAFTA. And they did so despite considerable pressure from the White House, which tried to reduce a welfare program for predatory multinationals and investment bankers to a matter of Clinton's supposed need for a legislative victory.

At its best, the Congressional Black Caucus brings to mind the black-led Reconstruction governments that gave the South its first blush of progressive state action (an accomplishment later undone by the white-supremacist Redeemer regimes). The Caucus in its best moments shows that, then as now, black citizens' political participation enriches democracy for the nation as a whole.