NAACP MAY LOSE ITS HEAD, SOURCES TELL TIME

Benjamin Chavis, the chief exec of the nation's largest civil rights organization, will be fired tomorrow and an oversight committee will be appointed until a replacement is found, a NAACP source has told TIME Senior Correspondent Jack White. The NAACP board meets tomorrow in Baltimore ostensibly to decide Chavis's fate. But White's source says a deal has already been cut within the NAACP to get rid of Chavis. Chavis has came under fire recently because he settled a sexual harrassment suit with money taken from the NAACP. Yesterday, a second woman accused Chavis of alleged improper advances, but later recanted her statement. Still, says White, Chavis' problems lie elsewhere: Chavis has claimed that under him, membership in the NAACP has increased by 100,000. However, an annual report shows that it has actually declined by about 20,000. "The damage to Chavis's credibility (from the membership numbers) may be more damaging than the sexual harrassment allegation," says White.