"I cannot in good conscience plead for fair procedures, the elimination of discrimination and the right of free expression for black Americans when the N.A.A.C.P.'s leadership is so hypocritical and lacking in integrity as to disregard those standards in its own affairs."
With that slashing statement, Robert Carter—an N.A.A.C.P. lawyer for 24 years —last week resigned his job as general counsel of the association. With him went the other seven lawyers and seven clerical workers who made up the N.A.A.C.P. legal department. Their mass quit-in, staged in protest over the firing of another staff member, Attorney Lewis Steel, threatened to bog down N.A.A.C.P. legal action against discrimination for months.
The N.A.A.C.P.'s board of directors fired Steel three weeks ago for writing an attack on the U.S. Supreme Court entitled "Nine Men in Black Who Think White" (TIME, Oct. 25). Printed in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the article accused the court of deferring to white public opinion and "condoning or overlooking the ingrained practices that have meant the survival of white supremacy."
N.A.A.C.P. Executive Director Roy Wilkins said that the board was shocked by both "the tone and the substance" of Steel's assertions. "By belittling the decisions of the court," said Wilkins, "and especially by classifying past civil rights victories as symbolic rather than substantive, he cast aspersions on all previous legal efforts in civil rights cases."
Carter's staff had another explanation for the board's action. In their statement, the lawyers claimed that Steel was fired as a rebuff to the legal department, which has lately taken on cases that the board considers too controversial. N.A.A.C.P. lawyers, for example, have sought the release of such "political prisoners" as Martin Sostre, a black nationalist bookseller who was sent to jail on narcotics charges in Buffalo last March. Whatever the board's motives, the N.A.A.C.P. must recruit replacement lawyers without delay. The association is currently involved in some 150 court actions, and although Carter has offered to remain until Dec. 1 to help complete them, his colleagues indicated that they would be leaving sooner.