NAACP president to resign after 19 months on job

NEW YORK -- NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon said yesterday that he will step down as leader of the civil rights organization after just 19 months, citing clashes with board members over management style and the group's mission.

"I believe that any organization that's going to be effective will only be effective if the board and the CEO are aligned and I don't think we are ," Gordon said. "This compromises the ability of the board to be as effective as it can ."

Julian Bond, chairman of the board of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said yesterday that Gordon tried to quit six weeks after taking the job in August 2005, but Bond persuaded him to stay.

"There were occasions where it seemed just not to be a perfect fit," Bond said. "But he had many, many great qualities, and he exhibited those qualities when he worked for us. I'm disappointed that it came to this."

Gordon will give up his duties by the end of the month, Gordon said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he attended the NAACP Image Awards on Friday.

Dennis C. Hayes, the group's general counsel, will serve as interim president, Bond said. Hayes filled the same role after Kweisi Mfume resigned the presidency in 2004 after nine years.

Gordon, a retired Verizon Corp. executive, said that although the NAACP is an advocacy organization, his vision was to focus more on finding practical solutions to black America's problems.

Gordon repeatedly asserted that he wanted the NAACP to do more social service work, said Rupert Richardson, a board member from Louisiana, but board members balked.

"I think he saw his job as remaking us to make us more effective, but his job was to do what the board and management wanted," Richardson said. "He was not a good fit for us, but he could have been."

Bond said, "Put simply, we fight racial discrimination and social service groups fight the effects of racial discrimination. Service is wonderful and praiseworthy, and fabulous, but many, many organizations do it. Only a couple do justice work, and we're one of those few."

Bond has acknowledged that, with 64 members, the NAACP's board of directors is large and sometimes unwieldy. But he says this allows a wide range of voices to be heard.

Gordon, 61, was a surprise pick for the group's top post. When he took over, he had no track record in traditional civil rights circles, although he became a member of the NAACP as a youth.

He had spent 35 years in the telecommunications industry and retired in 2003 from Verizon.

Gordon previously worked for Bell of Pennsylvania, which became part of Bell Atlantic. He is a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When he was picked to head the NAACP, critics said Gordon wouldn't be a good fit for the nearly 98-year-old organization.

However, he smoothed strained relations between the NAACP and the White House, meeting with President Bush three times in less than a year. He used corporate ties to lend quick assistance to black New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina.

Founded in 1909, the group helped win some of the nation's biggest civil rights victories. But the nation's racial progress has led some to question whether the NAACP remains relevant in today's political climate.

The group has about 300,000 dues-paying members and 100,000 non paying members.