Kweisi Mfume discusses his work with the NAACP - on Tavis Smiley Show

National Public Radio (NPR) December 2, 2004 Thursday

Copyright 2004 National Public Radio
All Rights Reserved 
Tavis Smiley 9:00 AM EST NPR

TAVIS SMILEY, host:

From NPR in Los Angeles, I'm Tavis Smiley.

On today's program, there's still more to talk about regarding HIV and AIDS. We'll find out what's being done to address the growing number of new cases, specifically among African-American women.

In day four of our morality roundtable, our four leading clergy members address theories of religious fundamentalism in America.

And when it comes to getting ahead, is it really about who you know vs. what you know? You'll know, later in this program.

But first, what now for Kweisi Mfume and the NAACP? That is perhaps the 64,000-dollar question, as they say, after Mfume announced earlier this week, on Tuesday, he's stepping down as president and CEO of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization.

(Soundbite of press conference)

Mr. KWEISI MFUME (President and CEO, NAACP): For the last nine years, I've had what I believe was both the honor and the privilege to help revive and to help restore this great organization, which for all intents and purposes has really become an American institution. The people who I have met along the way and the lessons that I have learned have proven to be invaluable.

SMILEY: When Kweisi Mfume took the helm of the NAACP back in 1995, the group was already besieged with scandal and saddled with more than $3 million of debt. Now nine years later, the debt has been eased, but the group is still struggling, as you might imagine, with other issues. Recently news surfaced that the IRS was investigating the organization's tax-exempt status, after Chairman Julian Bond criticized President Bush in a speech before the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia last summer. But Mfume, having served in the political spotlight for decades as an activist, congressman and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is credited with steering the NAACP into stable waters, attributed to a savvy business mind and top-notch management techniques.

I'm pleased to be joined now on the phone, I'm told from Baltimore, Maryland--I think I can say this--the soon-to-be president--let me rephrase that--the soon-to-be former president and CEO of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume.

Mr. President, nice to have you on, sir.

Mr. MFUME: All right. Thank you very much, Tavis, and, yes, you can say that.

SMILEY: So let me start with a real simple and silly question: How you feeling?

Mr. MFUME: You know, I feel great. Parting is never good, no matter when it is or what's involved, but every day since I made the decision, which really was about three, maybe four weeks ago now, I have felt better. You know, for me, it's an opportunity to have another chance, to make another choice, to try to make another difference somewhere else, and I don't know where that somewhere else might me, but I have a funny feeling that the next challenge will find me; I won't have to find it.

SMILEY: Fascinating and funny to hear you say that you have no idea where that next challenge may come from, but everybody else seems to think they know where that next challenge might come, and the word on the street is that you are considering a run for the US Senate from the state of Maryland. Any truth to that?

Mr. MFUME: Well, yes and no. I mean, Paul Sarbanes, our current senator, is a dear friend. He and his wife, Christine, are principled individuals that I've admired, and I'm just happy to know and to be able to say I'm friends with them. He's served well for a long, long time, and he may continue to want to serve well. That is clearly his option, and so it's almost disrespectful to me to even contemplate or to speak openly about whether or not I will or will run for his seat if he steps down, because that's a decision he makes. But you know, I'm a political animal. I've spent 17 years in local government--seven years in local government and then 10 years in the Congress, and with the exception of these nine years here at the NAACP, I've taken a great deal of pride in working in the government and making change and crafting bills and creating a path for people to have a better life. So if and when that ever occurs, obviously I'm going to look at it. I admire Paul and if he wants to run again, that's going to be his choice, and if he doesn't then I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

SMILEY: Let me ask you, I guess for each of us, we have our own decisions to make and we have to make those decisions in a certain time and space, and we have our own criteria for why we make those decisions when we make them. Let me ask you why you decided that now was a propitious time to step down? Was there something that happened? Was there some final goal that you wanted to accomplish when you crossed the finish line? I mean, why now?

Mr. MFUME: That's a good question, Tavis. I just believe--I've been taught all my life that you don't go somewhere to stay, you go to make a difference, and when you believe in your heart of hearts that you've made a difference, you've got to be honest enough with yourself to say, `OK, let me create an opportunity for somebody else to take over and to do things and to add a new energy.' And I actually said that nine years ago at a press conference when I was asked by a young reporter, `Well, why are you leaving the Congress? And how long are you going to stay there?' My real role at the time was to come in and try and get a job done.

You were correct in your opening remarks when you described the state of the organization. It was in absolute disrepair and disarray. People thought that we had lost our will and lost our way, and it was a tough time and a tough job that apparently not a lot of people wanted. And so when I gave up my seat in the Congress to do this, I said publicly at that press conference that I would do it to the point that I thought that the job that I had done had been accomplished, and then I would move on. And so hence I feel very good knowing that I've stayed true to that word.

There is a time in a person's life, several times, probably, when you know that you've got to do something else, that there's another calling. I've always been--you know, I've been taken by challenges. And I get up for that. I believe that if we are able to apply ourselves to those things that people think can't be done or won't be done, or are impossible, it makes us better people, no matter what it is. Booker T. Washington once said many years ago `We must learn to cast our buckets down where we are and pick our battlefields.' And so my time in my own mind had come to move on, and to allow this great organization the opportunity to have someone else come in with fresh energy and fresh ideas and take it to the next level.

SMILEY: This might be a wasted question. As an interviewer, you have to balance your time with asking questions you think you'll get an honest or insightful answer to--not to suggest that you've ever been dishonest with me--but while I may prejudge the answer, I want to ask anyway. Do you look back now and for any reason regret, to your earlier point, having given up a safe seat in Congress, because you had a safe seat?

Mr. MFUME: Yeah. I've never regretted that. Ironically, you know, it's a funny question. I've been getting it for years, but I have never regretted that. I'm the kind of person when I make a decision, I'll get there through a great deal of thought and contemplation, and so once I arrive at the decision, I'm fine with it. I missed my friends in the Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, because after 10 years you get to know people and their families, and you watch their children grow, and besides your partisan differences, you develop real good relationships. So that was the one thing I missed, but I never missed being in the Congress. I knew that there was always a possibility that if I had a chance to do that once, I might have a chance, if I was fortunate, to do it again.

SMILEY: Right.

Mr. MFUME: So I never have, and I guess people will ask me years from now, `Do you ever miss leaving the NAACP?' And I know the thing that I will miss have been the friendships that I've developed along the way and all the...

SMILEY: Yeah.

Mr. MFUME: ...lessons from all the wonderful people across this country who are black and white, and Latino and Asian, who've taken me into their home, who've told me what their perspective is on issues, who've stood with me and marched with me. And that I will miss. But I will not miss the fact that I--or not--regret the fact that I made the right decision. This is my time, and thank God I'm not trying to cling, but I want to at least move on and allow somebody else the opportunity to allow the organization to grow.

SMILEY: Let me ask you another personal question. I ask these personal questions respectfully, because I've seen your responses--in your press conference I watched it and I've seen you respond to some of the political questions. I don't want to retread here. So let me ask you something different, I hope, at least. I assume that in your internal circles of family and friends and fans, there were folk who said, `Kweisi, please, don't leave. The NAACP needs you. This is a great opportunity for you. It's a great springboard if you want to run for Sarbanes' seat in two years. Please, don't leave.' So let me ask you a personal question. How do--how have you, how are you making the folk around you who said maybe you shouldn't leave, the people need you, how have you made them comfortable with your decision?

Mr. MFUME: I think my demeanor has made a lot of them comfortable, because, as they said to me, `Man, you looked so happy at the press conference, we have to believe that you're comfortable, and if you're comfortable, no matter how much we wanted you to stay, then we'll find a way to find comfort also.' And there were a number of individuals on my board of directors who have been saying to me over the last three or four weeks, `Think about it, don't go, we want you to stay.' And I--you know, it's very humbling and I'm not saying that to be funny. It really, really is. But I would not be true to them or myself if I said, `OK, let me sign on for another three to four years' if I knew, in fact, that I would be breaking a commitment that I made publicly long ago, and that is that when it was time for me to go that I would step aside, that no one would have to ask me to move on. And so people looked at me and I think they look at my demeanor, hear my voice, see my happiness and know now that I've got so much more time for my family that they feel good about it.

SMILEY: In the minute and 30 seconds I have left, tell me what you think--back to the organization--the greatest challenge is that befalls or besets or certainly faces the NAACP at this moment?

Mr. MFUME: Well, this organization has been around just about for 95 years, and it's a long, long time to fight for a number of issues. I think the greatest thing is to understand that for the NAACP and organizations like us, it means understanding our ever-changing political and social environment so that we make that environment ultimately work for us and for those people who need help the most. Only by conforming to the reality of today's battlefield do we avoid being consumed by it, and it's important for this organization as it is for individuals not so much to look in the mirror every day at ourselves, because when we do we always find a way to justify our appearance. We don't see our wrinkles. We overlook our gray hair and we think we're beautiful. Organizations and people have a knack of doing that.

The better direction is to go to the window and to look out at the rest of the world, because when you do that, people will look back and tell you what you really look like, and then you will understand what you really have to do to survive. And I think that's important, to always be prepared to continue the evolution that takes place by understanding the tenor of the times that you're in and by knowing how and when to pick your battles.

SMILEY: The NAACP president and CEO, at least for a few more weeks, Kweisi Mfume.

Mr. Mfume, on a personal note, you have served with distinction and honor, and your courage and your conviction and your commitment to the work you've done I certainly appreciate, and I thank you for your service, and I thank you for coming on the program today.

Mr. MFUME: Tavis, thank you. You're a good friend. You provide a great service, and it'll be good, but we'll be talking in some other capacity, I'm sure, one day, when I...

SMILEY: We will. All the best to you.

Mr. MFUME: Thank you, sir. Bye, now.

SMILEY: Thank you.

Coming up, we'll talk about AIDS/HIV, specifically inside of black America with black women.

It's 19 minutes past the hour.