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The NAACP, the country’s oldest civil rights group, has appointed an administrator to oversee the affairs of its San Diego office after receiving complaints about alleged electoral and political irregularities.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” said the administrator, Alphonso Braggs, during a special Saturday morning meeting for members of the local branch.
He said about 35 people listening and watching over Zoom that he would investigate the allegations and make recommendations to the national board on possible remedial actions, which may include ordering a new election.
Meanwhile, “he has overall responsibility for the operation of the office, its committees and employees,” said an authorization letter dated July 23, signed by Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the Baltimore-based NAACP. This includes approving all expenses and political positions.
Francine Maxwell, president of the San Diego chapter, and other members of the executive committee denied any wrongdoing and expressed frustration at their inability to respond to the allegations until the administrator was installed. They gave Braggs an information pack for his investigation.
“Where’s our due process?” several of them asked during the two-hour meeting on Saturday. But they have also pledged to do whatever is necessary to end oversight.
The specific complaints were not published. Braggs said they were focused on the last branch election held last November and the industry adopting political positions that are “inconsistent with the positions of the national board of directors.”
“We are an organization, although we have a number of units spread across the country,” said Braggs, president of the Hawaii NAACP and member of the national board. “Each position of the policy must correspond to that which the headquarters has issued as the official policy.”
A recent example where this did not happen: the selection of Superintendent Cindy Marten as US Secretary of Education in schools in San Diego. The national board supported her nomination; the local group does not.
During the meeting on Saturday, Kenya Taylor, a former member of the local branch executive committee, identified himself as one of the complainants.
She ran for president against Maxwell and lost, but said that was not why she raised concerns. She said her campaign’s access to chapter members was unjustifiably restricted and that others had difficulty voting in the online poll.
“This problem is bigger than any single person,” she said. “It’s about the greater good of San Diego.”
The local group, founded in 1919, has hundreds of members. (The NAACP does not publish totals.) Their ranks have grown, and so has their activism for civil rights and social justice, including police reform, suffrage, and housing discrimination.
“Are you going to make us better?” Todd Cardiff, a local attorney, asked Braggs during the meeting. “We’re a kick-ass chapter. We’re moving fast and I would hate it if that was disturbed. “
Braggs praised Maxwell and the other local guides several times during the meeting for their passion and civic engagement.
“You lead the nation in several areas,” he said. “My job is to help you remove that extra level of consent while you continue to serve the people in the community.”
This is not the first time that the national board has taken action against the local branch. In September 2019, she suspended then-President Clovis Honoré for three years for unspecified “activities, behaviors and behaviors” that were viewed as harmful to the organization.
Several other chapters across the country have been placed under administrators in recent years for various reasons.
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