NAACP: Organization That Has Lost Its Way??
“Who is Really fighting for us?”

By Darwin Campbell
African-AmericanNews&Issues

 African Americans stood strong, firm and willing to risk life and limb, for many years, knowing they could depend on an organization with a proven record and rich historical heritage fighting for equality and civil rights.
But…has the NAACP lost its way?
The organization is bowing more to corporate “plantation” contributions and bogged down in a bureaucracy so deep, its mission has turned to feeding extravagant lifestyles, serving selfish desires and dining on steady membership contribution buffets, rather than focus on fighting the civil rights and injustices occurring with minorities, the poor and less fortunate and disadvantaged, who have no voice and no one to turn to when the liberties and freedoms’ assaults occur.
“The NAACP has become superficial and is a totally different animal from what the founders envisioned,” said former NAACP president and veteran civil rights leader, Lee Alcorn. “The mission is lost today because today’s emphasis is on money and taking contributions from the types of individuals that allow the compromise of that mission.”
Alcorn, who worked over 25 years for the NAACP across the Metroplex, started and led a chapter in Grand Prairie and ran the Dallas Branch until the late 1990s, is on his own mission to continue the genuine civil rights mission as founder of the Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights.
He believed in the original mission and thought it would be both aggressive and helpful in finding solutions and helping African Americans discover the racial equality and justice still lacking in the United States.
The NAACP was founded in February 1909 by a multiracial activist group answering "The Call." The group was was initially the National Negro Committee. Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, and William English Walling were the original members leading the "Call" to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty.
The growing agency dealt with the South’s small racists towns to the Supreme Court’s issues, revealed its presence in the White House and began its legacy of fighting legal battles addressing social injustices with the Pink Franklin case, which involved a Black farmhand.
The NAACP launched its first successful protest against Supreme Court justice nominee, John Parker, in 1930. Parker officially favored laws discriminating against African Americans.
The NAACP Youth Council members launched a series of non-violent sit-ins in 1960 at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina. The protests eventually lead to more than 60 stores desegregating their counters.
The organization has also been responsible for some of the greatest advancements in fighting the South’s desegregation and promoting voting rights and voter registration drives in American history.
“In 1950s and 60s, the height of popularity came for the NAACP, because of African American attorney (later Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall and his efforts,” said Alcorn. “During that time, things were being done and people were proud of it and wanted to belong. In those days, in the small racist town and cities, respect for the NAACP was high and no one wanted to have to deal with them, because people back then knew the organization was powerful and had clout.”
Alcorn said he was once a proud member, dedicating time to investigating and processing complaints, conducting protests and being a vocal mouthpiece in the community by addressing voting power, racial discrimination and injustice issues, especially involving African Americans struggling in the workplace.
His Grand Prairie efforts won him critical acclaim with colleagues and the organization. He led the Dallas Branch in the 1990s and also contributed to one of the largest voter registration efforts resulting in the largest voter turnout in the city’s history, and the election of Ron Kirk as its first African American mayor. Kirk was later discovered as having a relationship with several major companies the NAACP were targeting for their actions against African Americans.
“Because of my aggressiveness, I had a lot on conflict with Texaco, Dr. Pepper and other big companies we were protesting,” he said. “Kirk thought that I was too aggressive with the corporations, and since he had a relationship with then NAACP Leader/CEO, Kweisi Mfume, they began to make it difficult for me to operate and began to suspend me over the protests I was involved in and comments I was making.”
Mfume joined the NAACP when it was in red and difficult financial strains. According to Alcorn, the desperation led leaders to begin begging and taking money from everywhere, including corporations with less than stellar civil rights records. The NAACP became dependent on them after returning to black, and could not speak out on anything, because of the threat to the organization’s bottom line.
“They wanted to continue to get this money and keep these relationships with these large corporations. However, there was a hell of a price the organization paid for it,” he said.
Alcorn’s clashes escalated with the organization when protesting Dallas’ Dr. Pepper by getting people to stop dealing with its racial and discriminatory ways. Dr. Pepper’s president went to Baltimore (NAACP Headquarters) and gave the NAACP a large contribution.
“They took the money and the national headquarters came back to me and ordered me to leave Dr. Pepper alone,” he said.
Texaco officials, in another protest, made discriminatory remarks about African Americans and also gave NAACP a large contribution, after Alcorn and the organization protested and shut down some of its Dallas stations, and that protest was also ordered to a halt.
“The organization has taken so much money from corporations where a large number of African Americans are having problems and that makes it impossible to get anything done. This organization should be about people who cannot help themselves, but instead it has watered itself down to the point that it is not a threat,” said Alcorn.
However, the greatest rift between Alcorn and the organization occurred after the Democrats selected and the NAACP backed Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Jew, to run as vice presidential candidate with Presidential Candidate Al Gore in 1999.
“When the Democrats named its VP nominee, I did not feel good about Lieberman’s selection,” he said. “I thought it was a slight to African Americans, because of the history we had with the Democratic Party and believed there should have at least been an African American vice presidential candidate or at least had someone interviewed for the job.”
According to Alcorn, his comments were taken as Anti-Semitic and widely reported, and the NAACP suspended him after accepting $35 million from primarily Jewish contributors to get out the African American vote.
“They told Enfume to chastise me again or get rid of me. So, I decided to say the hell with the NAACP, because I could no longer work for an organization that was fighting me despite my dedication and years of hard work fighting for the cause,” he said.
The organization’s current structure, according to him, makes it difficult to address any issue the proper way. Some residents report being unable to get help on race and discrimination problems, and are turned away, because they are not a “dues paying member.”
“Money and membership should not be a requirement to get assistance. It should not operate like that,” said Alcorn. “because a lot of people who have these problems don’t have the money to fight and this organization was founded on that and should only be about people who cannot help themselves.”
Other active local branches trying to maintain the original mission have been stifled by the increasing bureaucracy strangling the organization.
“Some local branches are working hard as hell to keep the mission alive, but can’t say or do anything publicly or address local issues or protests without getting it cleared through national office in Baltimore,” said Alcorn. “This makes it impossible to deal with local issues on a real to real time basis. By the time you get an answer back from national office, it might be a month or so later, and you have lost the urgency and ability to deal with that issue on a timely basis.”
Living in the past and resting on traditional laurels have not eased the continuing struggles many African Americans today face battling civil rights, racism and injustice in the criminal justice system, workplace, schools and a society, government and communities reneging and backing away from Affirmative Action, and other basic civil liberties and freedoms granted after 1865 and 1964.
The great civil rights lion’s roar has changed and been replaced by a cuddly kitten’s soft purr.
“People have noticed this,” Alcorn said. “When you talk to African Americans, many will tell you that the NAACP in Dallas and Fort Worth and other places is ceremonial and largely ineffective.”