LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Benjamin Chavis Jr. : New Head of NAACP Sets an Impassioned Agenda

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is a minister, but that might be the most he has in common with his cautious and conservative predecessors at the helm of the venerable National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. Chavis is young. He’s tough. He’s outspoken. He’s comfortable with the underclass and the wealthy and everybody in between.

At 45, Chavis is the youngest executive director of the nation’s oldest, largest and some would say almost moribund civil-rights organization. He intends to revitalize the historic group, to make it intensely relevant to younger and poorer African-Americans. But some plans, like an NAACP rap song, are sure to be an anathema to the mature, middle-class members who have long been the backbone of the organization.

Chavis set the tone of his tenure by spending his first week on the job in Los Angeles while the jury deliberated in the Rodney G. King federal civil-rights trial. Shunning fancy hotels, he stayed in housing projects in Watts where he talked nonstop to gang leaders, pregnant teens, elected officials and civic leaders.

Fluent in Spanish, Chavis is reaching out to Latinos, Asians and whites. His crusade--and his NAACP transition team--is multiracial and global. His wife, Martha, is from the Dominican Republic.

Chavis came of age in the rural South, in Oxford, N.C., when American race relations were strictly black and white. A civil-rights advocate for much of his life, he was wrongfully convicted on conspiracy and arson charges as one of the Wilmington 10, a group of civil-rights workers accused of firebombing a white-owned grocery. He spent nearly five years in prison before a federal appeals court reversed the conviction.

Prior to his NAACP appointment, Chavis served as the executive director of the Commission for Racial Justice for the Cleveland-based United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination. For the past decade, he has championed environmental justice. Because of his expertise, he served on the Clinton-Gore transition team on natural resources.

The father of six, Chavis will soon move to Baltimore, where the NAACP has its headquarters. He plans to set up a computer network and an endowment--but not before his work is accomplished in Los Angeles.

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Question: Is the NAACP relevant to what’s happening in Los Angeles today ?

Answer: Yes. The situation in L.A. today is very relevant to the historic mandate of why the NAACP was first established back in 1909 . . . . The NAACP, from the very beginning, was structured to respond to the challenges of racial discrimination.

There is tension now in Los Angeles because of the absence of racial justice, the absence of economic justice, the absence of equal justice under the law. . . . But it’s just not a recent thing. We’d have to go back to 1965, to the Watts rebellion, the McCone Commission report . . . . The Kerner Commission concluded that our society was moving toward being two separate societies--one black, one white--separate and unequal.

Today, in 1993, our society is moving toward being multiple societies--black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American--all separate, all unequal. We have not solved the interracial problem between blacks and whites . . . and now the racial divide is being divided into many more pieces.

Q: Is justice on trial in L.A. today?

A: I don’t think justice is on trial. The United States is on trial . . . . The world wants to know: Can there be equal justice under the law in the United States of America? How much progress have we really made toward ensuring justice for all people, regardless of the color of the skin of the victim, or the color of the skin of the defendant? . . .

We have a classic situation now in Los Angeles, where the white police officers who have been accused of beating Rodney King, brutally, and unjustly, are on trial this time in federal court. This is not a state situation. This is a federal situation. If the federal courts fail to render justice, it has something to say about the United States of America, in addition to Los Angeles County.

Gayle Pollard Terry is an editorial writer for The Times. She interviewed Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. at a public school in Watts.

Q: Do you think justice can possibly be attained without convictions?

A: I don’t think justice is possible without convictions. That’s the prevailing feeling, certainly in the ‘hood, but it’s also the prevailing feeling across the United States. One of the reasons you need a National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People is to bring a national perspective to this issue. . . .

L.A. now exemplifies whether or not the United States of America has the opportunity to move into the 21st Century as a truly multiracial, multicultural society. Or, we are going into the 21st Century as a racially divided society. . . .

Q: Would acquittals ever justify another rebellion?

A: I don’t think anything would justify a recurrence of what happened last year. I don’t want to see a recurrence of self-destructive violence. The NAACP joins a chorus of people, locally and nationally, who are asking for calm, peace and the easing of tension. But we join the chorus at another octave level. We join the chorus asking for peace--at the same time demanding that justice be done.

One of my concerns is that everyone wants peace, but I don’t hear that many people talking about justice. In the absence of justice, peace is very difficult to maintain. . . .

The situation in L.A. is going to be volatile no matter which way the verdict goes. If all four officers are found guilty and put in prison, L.A. is still going to be volatile. If all of them are found not guilty or if there’s a hung jury, L.A. is still going to be volatile. What the jury does, it turns up the heat a little or down a little, but the pot on the stove is still about to boil.

Q: What did you learn in prison?

A: I found an inner strength. . . . I realized I was not the first African-American to be imprisoned unjustly. When they put those chains about my ankles, I would think about the chains my great-grandparents wore. . . .

But prison was not the final chapter in my life, it was a chapter. I decided not to serve time but to make time serve me. I earned a masters of divinity, magna cum laude from Duke University. I learned Greek and translated the New Testament. . . . I read the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP, and Frederick Douglass. James Baldwin was an influence on me.

I learned there is no adversity that one goes through in life that one cannot draw some strength from. . . . That I lived through the experience--and it was an excruciating experience, particularly when I was in maximum security--is relevant. . . .

The NAACP has established chapters in prisons and correctional facilities both for men and women. Given the high rate of juvenile incarceration, we are contemplating also starting Youth Councils to help begin the constructive bridge back into society. We’ve found from our prison chapters that young men take a lot of pride in being part of an organization that is also on the outside. . . . To participate in the civil-rights movement, the movement for justice, gives them another reason for pride, self-worth, self-esteem. It can be a transforming experience . . .

We’re warehousing some of our best intellectual potential. This goes across racial lines, but it’s particularly true for African-Americans, because we have such a high rate of incarceration. The stereotyping of inmates is something the NAACP has to challenge. . . .

Q: How do you help people who live here in Watts?

A: I don’t come with a lot of prescriptions. I come with a determination to listen. What I have been doing in Imperial Courts, Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens is listening to the brothers and sisters who say that no one has taken the time to listen to them.

I spent the first night with gang leaders . . . . I didn’t need the Housing Authority Security. I didn’t need the LAPD to protect me from my own people. I was secured in the ‘hood by these young men and women. They secured me not with guns, not with armaments, but with their love, their respect, with their embrace. Not a gunshot was fired. Not an argument was held. It was totally peaceful.

Q: Is the NAACP is going to bring jobs and services to housing projects?

A: The NAACP is a social-change organization. We’re not a social service. So the NAACP is not going to start having soup lines or building housing shelters. We’re going to activate our 2,200 units . . . and get them to focus on impacting the public-policy agenda at the local level, the state level and the federal level in a way that can make a difference.

We’re going to continue to have Freedom Fund dinners, but I’m expanding how we function, and the issues around which we function. The NAACP is going to start addressing black-on-black crime . . . drugs . . . teen-age pregnancy.

We believe you have to fight racial discrimination, because part of the social disintegration in the African-American community is directly related to racial discrimination. During the Reagan years, we had the rise of a pseudo-intellectualism which posited that race is no longer a discerning factor in America . . . . We’re going to challenge these false notions.

. . . . The myth is that there is some severe class contradiction between being middle class and being underclass. If the NAACP is going to be viable, the NAACP has to bridge class stratifications within the African-American community. . . .

Q: How do you reach the black millionaires who live in Baldwin Hills or Bel-Air?

A: When I first started candidating for this position, I had (the support of) the richest African-American millionaire in the country, Reginald F. Lewis (who died in February) . . . . He was one of my mentors . . . . One of the things I learned out of that relationship is a methodology to reach other brothers and sisters who are millionaires. I’ll be unapologetic about that. I am going to bring those brothers and sisters who are millionaires into the NAACP and have them sit down around the same table with brothers and sisters who don’t have a cent in their pocket. . . . It’s not what you have in your pocket that’s important; it’s what you can put on the table. If you don’t have money to put on the table, put your human resources on the table, put your life on the table. Our commitment to the NAACP is not temporary, it is lifelong.

Q: How do you reach white America?

A: Don’t scare them to death. I have the capacity to talk to whites about racial justice, about economic justice, about social justice in a manner that does not frighten them to death. Keep in mind that I come out of the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white church.

Q: The majority of white Americans supported civil rights 30 years ago, when black people were getting beaten and gassed and attacked by dogs. Now, you have some white men who equate civil rights with reverse discrimination and believe they are the victims. How do you change that?

A: Part of my mission is to clarify the reality of racial discrimination . . . . For the last two decades, most Americans, not only white males, have had a very distorted view about what racism is, about what characterizes racial exploitation. The whole notion of reverse discrimination is a false notion. It was part of the backlash to the advances that were made . . . . We have lost ground. So part of what I’m about now is trying to regain some of the ground that was lost . . . . I want people to join the NAACP not because they want to be a part of some historical group or have a nostalgic relationship with the past. I want them to join the NAACP because it’s going to be a viable, fighting instrument in the present, leading toward the future.

Q: Will the NAACP fight for Latinos?

A: No question about it. The struggle for the future has to be multiracial. The NAACP will maintain a priority in dealing with the rights of the African-American community, but we will not be blinded to the existence of racial discrimination in other communities.

Q: Will the NAACP mediate the conflict between Koreans and blacks, between Latinos and African-Americans--particularly for jobs and political clout in this city?

A: I don’t see the NAACP as being a mediator. I see the NAACP as being a clarifier of what the real issues are. Once African-Americans understand that their interests are in line with the interests of the Latino community, there can be a mutual relationship. One of the reasons there is enmity right now is because those who have power pit these communities against one another.

The media, just last night, showed Asian-Americans, those who own businesses, arming themselves. What do you think is in the minds of young African-Americans when they see that on television? Asian-Americans are arming themselves, yet they’re told in the ‘hood if they’re just seen congregating on a corner, it constitutes a riot. . . . The NAACP role, in my opinion, is not necessarily to mediate conflict, but to prevent conflict.

Q: Is legitimate protest possible in this climate?

A: Legitimate, nonviolent protest is absolutely necessary. If we, in the civil-rights movement, do not create the constructive, nonviolent, forums and strategies for people to legitimately vent their justified anger, then people will engage in self-destructive, violent alternatives . . . . Legitimate protest can help instill a modicum of calm. Protest is therapeutic. Marching and demonstrating, people are venting their anger. . . . People in L.A., particularly African-Americans who live in the inner city, who have lived in Watts since 1965, have a lot to be angry about. What happened to Rodney King was not an isolated incident . . . . We’re thankful that we have a new person, Chief Willie Williams, over the police department and hopefully things will change. He’s tried, since he’s been in office, to initiate some policies to bring about change. I support those changes, although I understand he’s concerned about my raising questions about whether or not the police department’s actions are provocative or not. That’s my role as executive director of the NAACP. I have to call it like I see it. I have to call it like I hear it from the people’s perspective.

I don’t want either side of this equation to overreact. We don’t want the community to overreact, but somebody needs to say we don’t want law enforcement to overreact. If either side overreacts, then this pot that’s on the stove is going to explode.