Last Saturday the NAACP replaced longtime Chairman Julian Bond, naming health-care administrator Roslyn M. Brock as its chairman. Brock, 44, is, like President/CEO Benjamin Jealous the first such chairman to never have experienced legal segregation. I’m mildly surprised that there hasn’t been a bit more coverage on this news, but they made the move on a Saturday, which even in this age of 24-hour instantaneous news coverage is not necessarily a “good-look” news wise. You want to make a splash with something like this? Do it in the morning during the week.
But I digress.
So I’ve begun doing the research for my second book project (on neoliberalism in black politics) in earnest. The NAACP is one of the entities I am interested in studying, not just because they are the oldest and most venerable civil rights association, but because of two administrative moves made in 1977 and in 1996 respectively. In 1977 they changed the title of the Executive Secretary to the Executive Director/CEO. IN 1996 they eliminated the ELECTED office of President and established the title of President/CEO.
The latter move effectively takes away the ability to select a President from NAACP members at large, and to an extent from the 67-member National Board of Directors. The former move sounds like a simple name change–I don’t know whether any formal responsibilities changed–but I think it signals something a bit more. Different thoughts come to mind when we think of an “executive secretary” than come to mind when we think of an “executive director/ceo”. In fact, different thoughts come to mind when we think of an “executive director/CEO” than when we think of an “executive director.” Indeed, the very term “CEO” has become in some ways more powerful than “congressman” or “senator”.
I imagine that the reason both of these moves occurred was to bring the NAACP into the modern era of civil rights advocacy. But what does this mean exactly? What do we lose when we take the ability to elect a leader and replace that with an executive headhunting firm? I’d argue that this move is part and parcel of the neoliberal shift in black politics, the shift towards a corporate management approach to race relations and to black politics. And although the first NAACP leader with corporate experience (Bruce Gordon) was not chosen until 2005, it seems that the organization was moving towards this point much much earlier.
Thoughts are welcome.
Good essay, Les. One response is that many non-profits have adopted “CEO” because of pressure from funding agencies and/or new “best practices” in financial accounting. I'm with you, though; the change in titles also reflects cultural and governance changes within the organization, and some of these are far from benign.
1. To acquire some administrative and operational independence from that ridiculously bloated and dysfunctional directorate.
2. To consolidate and specifically embody internal and external relationship management (the CEO's primary role in any organization)
3. To begin transitioning away from the gatekeeping and gladhanding 2nd and 3rd line inheritors of the civil rights movement who overstayed their usefulness to the organization and its mission oh…., say…., 30 years ago.
Have to think about 3. How would we know if this happened?
Having never seen their financial disclosures, I'm not sure if it could be gleaned from previous years' financial reporting – specifically travel and hospitality expenses incurred by that bloated board – compared with a more streamlined set of expenses incurred by a board which meets sparingly, strictly to set policy.
That's where I'd go looking first. Historical financial reporting data going back as far as possible, to the period when the naacp was useful – compared and contrasted with its many years of oxygen thievery – and then looking/going forward to the years in which it is run like a late 20th century not-for-profit organization the bulk of whose expenditures are made pursuant to its mission, rather than pursuant to the okey-doke.
thanks. incredibly helpful.