Pages from the Archives
after the April board meeting and demanded to know if he had made a commitment to Jackson.“ Tell me what you’ re going to do. You can’ t have me out here blind like this. I know you’ ve got to know if you’ re going with Jesse,” she said.
“ I still have some concerns about whether Jesse is the one because I don’ t want Jesse to take us off on his own agenda,” Gibson answered.
That surprised Richardson, who by now was getting almost daily calls from Jackson, alternately telling her that he had Gibson’ s backing and pressing her to announce that she would vote for him.
“ What’ s the excuse of the day?” Jackson asked her during one of those telephone conversations.“ Yesterday you hadn’ t talked to Gibson, and the day before that you were still thinking about it, and the day before that you thought Chavis might be good. Give me the excuse of the day.”
“ I’ m part of a political machine,” she said, referring to Gibson’ s faction of the board,“ and all the cards are not on the table. I’ m going whichever way that machine goes unless it’ s just somebody crazy.”
“ Well, Rupert, do you think I’ d be this far out here if I didn’ t have Gibson’ s support?” Jackson shot back.“ That’ s the machine you’ re talking about, isn’ t it?”
“ Yeah,” she answered.
“ He hasn’ t told y’ all?” Jackson asked.
“ No,” she said.
After that conversation, Jackson stopped calling Richardson. By then, Gibson had backed away from his early support of Jackson. He had been convinced by Poole and others that giving the executive director’ s job to Jackson-- a political ally of Dukes and Sutton-- would undermine his board faction’ s control of the organization.
Poole urged Gibson to accept Chavis as their candidate. Gibson never announced his choice for the job. But his supporters on the board understood that when Poole started saying“ we’ re going with Chavis,” he was speaking for the chairman.
Two days before the board gathered in Atlanta, in April 1993, to select Hooks’ successor, Jackson dropped out of the race. In a six-page letter to Gibson that was distributed widely to journalists, he explained“ I made it clear that I would not participate in a fratricidal political battle, but that if you, the board, and the association members with whom I have worked across the years thought that I could be of service, I would avail myself.”
Jackson’ s claim that Gibson had offered him the job was backed up by Ben Andrews, the board’ s vice chairman.“ Make no mistake about it, there was a commitment,” he told me in a recorded interview.“ I should know. I sat in on meetings where it was discussed.”
Jackson’ s withdrawal letter was read to the NAACP board on April 9, 1993 – Good Friday. That same day, it announced it’ s selection of Ben Chavis to be its next executive director. ■
Tape recordings of Wickham’ s conversations with these and many other NAACP officials can be found in the DeWayne Wickham Collection at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland.
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