Turnover at helm, demographics lead some to ask: Are local NAACP’s best days gone?

By Timothy Pratt

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The local chapter of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization has just named its third president in less than two months, a sign, some say, of disarray and ineffectiveness.

Turnover at the Las Vegas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began Dec. 7 when Dean Ishman, president since 2003, announced his resignation for personal reasons.

Under the chapter’s bylaws, the post then went to First Vice President Edward L. Watson. He stepped down Jan. 17, explaining in his resignation letter that the chapter suffered from financial problems he couldn’t solve.

Next in the line of succession was Peggy Maze Johnson. She would have been the first white woman to lead the local chapter — if her claim to the office hadn’t been challenged over her failure to pay the $30 annual membership dues on time.

On Jan. 30, executive board members chose Andy Brewer, a retired New York City bus driver, as president.

The turnstile at the chapter’s helm and the apparent financial problems are not the first obstacles the group has faced. In 2001, the national office took away the chapter’s charter after internal fights over elections.

That track record, together with demographic changes in the Las Vegas Valley during the past two decades, leaves some asking whether recent events point to an impending demise of an organization with a diminishing role in the black community.

When the local chapter formed in 1928, blacks made up the main minority population in the valley. Now at least one of every four people in the valley is Hispanic, and fewer than one in 10 are black. This means the concept of discrimination and civil rights has changed as well, leading to new groups formed to deal with those issues.

Ishman said he found it frustrating trying to get people interested in the NAACP. “Folks are spread so thin nowadays, and there are so many organizations,” he said.

Samuel Smith, owner of the Native Son bookstore in a predominantly black section of West Las Vegas, sees recent events in the local NAACP as the group’s “kiss of death.”

“This is when organizations like this start to fall apart,” said Smith, who has been a local chapter member on and off for decades.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said news of turmoil at the NAACP is very troubling. He said his organization has worked with the local NAACP chapter on issues ranging from voting rights to, in recent years, coroner’s inquests.

But Smith suggested that much of the organization’s best work may have been in the past, when the valley still lived under segregation, from schools to casinos.

He said many blacks moving to the Las Vegas Valley nowadays are middle-class retirees who don’t see the need for a civil rights organization. He also noted that most of the chapter’s leadership has been of retirement age and the organization has not attracted enough young members.

“Most people don’t even know anything about it except it’s been around 100 years,” he said. “It becomes more of a social thing.”

Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, said many black people in his district — which straddles North Las Vegas and West Las Vegas and is about 35 percent black — have lost a sense of connection to the organization. He noted that the local chapter doesn’t have an office in the area — it is near Eastern Avenue and Desert Inn Road — and that many of his constituents tell him they often can’t get through on the phone.

“People get discouraged,” Munford said.

But the local chapter’s supporters predict it will soon regain its footing.

Ishman pointed to the chapter’s growth during his tenure as a sign of its health. Membership is at about 700, twice as large as when he took office in 2003, he said. Plus, the local chapter has established first-ever college and prison groups during the past four years.

Brewer said one of his first jobs will be clearing up a debt with the Rio dating from an October fundraising banquet. He wouldn’t say how much is owed. But former President Watson wrote a Jan. 23 letter to the local chapter’s executive committee citing a figure of $20,781. It was the only specific example of the “financial mishandlings” he mentioned in his resignation letter. Watson didn’t answer calls seeking comment.

Ishman, who said he tried to clear up the debt with the hotel, said, “It’s sad that folks make this a big deal.” He said he knew of no other money problems, adding that the Rio debt stems from confusion about the hotel’s charges for the event. Tickets to attend were $100 each, but the hotel charged the chapter $80 for each person who was served a dinner, Ishman said.

“How do you make money like that?” Ishman said.

It wasn’t clear how much the event raised. Ishman underscored, however, that the organization had at least $30,000 in its bank account.

Asked about recent achievements, Brewer pointed to a golf tournament fundraiser for youth scholarships that he helped organize.

The event, also in October, took in $10,000, about a third of which went to “a fund.” Brewer didn’t know where the money went after that.

“I have not gotten a report yet as to where it went,” he said.

Brewer will serve as president until November, when elections are scheduled. He said he has yet to plan the organization’s activities for the coming months.

What should the local chapter focus on? “Education. Crimes,” he said.

“We’re monitoring these things as we go along and also make every attempt to solve problems when we can.”