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Freedom Is Not Free. . .
THE HIGH COST OF CIVIL RIGHTS
By Benjamin L. Hooks

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Walter Haimann recently (October 28, 1981) made the Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. annual corporate contribution to Dr. Ben Hooks, Executive Director of the NAACP.

You have heard, no doubt, rumors pertaining to the financial status of the NAACP. Half-truths and erroneous reports have appeared in the press indicating that the Association was experiencing astronomical increases in revenues as a result of the November, 1980, election and subsequent events pertaining thereto.

While it is true that for the period January-May 1981, membership was increased by 44,919 over 1980 figures for the same period, it is also true that the ongoing operation of the Association has been hit hard by the rigors of inflation and the necessity for the Association to spend an increased portion of its limited resources to fight the regressive trends which confront Black America in the 1980s.

On the positive side, I am pleased to report that the NAACP has responded in a timely and forthright fashion to a number of pressing issues which should concern every American in general and black Americans in particular.

In the case of Atlanta, our branch, under the able direction of its president, the Hon. Julian Bond, and his creative and innovative executive secretary, Jondell Johnson, has immersed itself in an effort to bring to a swift conclusion the tragedies which have plagued that city and assist the families of the victims. Twenty-eight young blacks have been killed in a senseless, brutal and inextricable fashion over the past two years. I hasten to point out that the Atlanta Branch has been involved from the beginning of this tragedy. The branch assisted in burying one of the first victims, has worked closely with Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown and Mayor Maynard Jackson and set up four centers for youngsters in March of this year. I personally visited Atlanta on March 23, to assist in the opening of these centers. Additionally, I met with Police Commissioner Brown and Mayor Jackson for the purpose of securing first-hand information on the investigation and offering the resources of the Association to the city. We were, as an Association, instrumental in securing a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Government to assist the city in its exhaustive and expensive investigation into the tragedies.

Your NAACP submitted to the Reagan Administration an alternative budget in April of this year. We secured some of the best technical minds in the country in an effort to demonstrate that spending cuts do not necessarily mean that social programs so vital to blacks and the poor had to be gutted. A copy of the executive summary of that 100-plus page economic document has been placed in each of your kits for your perusal and information.

Our Washington Bureau has been busy opposing regressive assaults upon affirmative action; supporting the extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which expires in 1982, and fighting on that front to have the cuts in social programs restored.

Our Legal Department is embroiled in one of the most historical desegregation cases—one upon which the entire school integration issue might hinge—the Los Angeles school case.

In the area of Branch and Field Administration, we have added additional field staff in areas which have long been neglected. Leroy Clark has been appointed Arkansas-Tennessee Field Director, and we have appointed Robert Walker Mississippi State Field Director. In every region of the Association there is now a contact person paid by the National Office, through which many of the requests and complaints can be channelled. This was not true just a few short years ago. Our staff, with its limited resources, has been called upon to walk water, to make bricks without straw, as well as assist branches in their regular activities.

Our Klan Watch has produced detailed reports from the branches on Klan activity and other terrorist activities aimed at blacks across the nation.

I want to point out these developments to make you aware of the myriad of activities with which your Association must involve itself. Increasingly so, if we should remain viable, we must be armed and prepared to deal with the new, sophisticated and subtle forms of racism as well as the blatant, overt forms of discrimination which have been an integral part of our history.

As you know, the NAACP, distinct from the SCF, is in a serious financial deficit posture. This situation was brought on not by poor administration, bad bookkeeping or mismanagement, but, rather, we have been forced into this dilemma by the pressures of inflation and inadequate membership and Freedom Fund assessment revenues which the National Office receives.

To give you an example— air fare, just in the past 12 months has risen by almost one-third. Our attempts to cut back on travel expenses has been frustrated by the never ceasing increases in air travel, on what appears to be almost a daily basis. In the past three years it has cost the National Office $622,243 for rents at our New York headquarters alone. This is a fixed cost which we can do very little about until 1982 when our current lease expires.

In addition to the rents on the national headquarters, the NAACP maintains seven regional offices, the ACT-SO office in Chicago, the Miami Urban Office and a number of legal offices.

In order to service our more than 2,000 units, we have another ongoing high expense item—telephone services. Your NAACP spends nationally approximately $40,000-