NEW LEADERSHIP FOR THE NAACP

The debt- and scandal-ridden NAACP has chosen Maryland Democratic Congressman Kweisi Mfume as its next leader. "This is a ten-strike for the NAACP," says National correspondent Jack White. "Mfume brings a level of credibility to an organization that has sorely needed it in the last several years. It was impressive that the organization was able to conduct this search without controversy and public knowledge, which is not the way they have conducted business in a long time. Mfume is an extremely intelligent, skilled politician whose own personal biography as an abused child and out-of-wedlock father who picked himself up will resonate with black America." Mfume, who will leave Congress in February and take the title of President and Chief Executive Officer of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1992 to 1994, and his departure from Congress, says White, could signal a change in how blacks participate in the political process. "With the Republicans in charge of Congress, the debate on redistricting congressional districts and the success of the Million Man March, blacks are thinking that electoral politics may not be the route to salvation," says White.