NAACP board ousts President Brooks

Saying it needs “the right leadership,” the the board of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has ousted its current president and CEO, Cornell W. Brooks.

The move Friday comes as the group has been seen in some circles as taking a back seat to long-standing and newer civil rights groups and movements that have risen to prominence in battles over police shootings, immigration and LGBT rights.

These groups and movements include the American Civil Liberties Union, which recently gained wins against President Donald Trump in federal courts, and Black Lives Matters activists, who won private meetings with President Barack Obama as they developed a youth-centered. grassroots movement against racism and police violence.

“We believe as an organization, we need to retool to become better advocates, better at educating the public, better at involving them,” Derrick Johnson, vice chairman of the NAACP board of directors, said in a conference call announcing the change.

Johnson said Brooks will end his position after nearly three years. Brooks will serve until his contract expires June 30.

Brooks told American Urban Radio Networks on Friday that he was surprised by the decision and disagreed with it.

“The stated reason is that they are reimagining the NAACP. Beyond that, I can't point to any substantive reason,” he said. “What I can point to this: The NAACP over the course of the less than three years [he has been president] is more visible, more vocal, growing in members, donors, presence in the courts and in communities across the country.”

Brooks is known as a soft-spoken attorney with a history of working in civil rights organizations. Before the NAACP, he was president of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington.

His tenure at the NAACP included several court wins against state voting restrictions that group said discriminated against minorities. The group also filed a lawsuit against Michigan state officials over the water crisis in Flint.