NAACP HEAD CITES PROBLEMS LOCALLY

In the past 30 years, the focus of the civil rights movement has shifted from access and public accommodations to economic issues of parity and development, says Michael Sterling, president of the Cape Girardeau branch of the NAACP.

He was one of three local NAACP officers attending Saturday's civil rights march in Washington, D.C.

Sterling, the organization's president for the past two years, says the famous dream the Rev. Martin Luther King referred to at the 1963 march has not yet come true.

That is so in Cape Girardeau, he said, where two separate cities divided by William Street have been created. "In the south end of town you will find many places to buy alcohol, but you can't find one place where a child can check out a book."

Sterling says the city's lack of good, affordable housing is causing all kinds of problems. "It's the reason you see a lot of young people walking the streets. A lot of time there's no room where they're living.

"It leads to a high crime rate, teenage pregnancy, and it affects the children's education."

In an interview before leaving for Washington, Sterling said he is considering a run for mayor in the spring. "I could bring about a much-needed change in Cape Girardeau," he said, "a sense of equality and steadfastness.

"And bring about parity and fundamental human rights and dignity in this society for all people."

In recent years, some commentators have questioned whether the NAACP represents African American people any longer. Cape Girardeau's own Rush Limbaugh maintains it doesn't, particularly with regard to conservative blacks.

Some civil rights groups, meanwhile, think the NAACP has become too conservative and is primarily interested in middle class blacks.

Two years ago Newsweek characterized the nation's civil rights groups as "demoralized and defeated." Since then the NAACP has elected a new executive director, Benjamin Chavis Jr., who has attempted to broaden the organization's base and sharpen its demands for economic parity.

Meanwhile, the nearly moribund Cape Girardeau branch has been much more active under Sterling's leadership over the past two years. Sterling said he is not allowed to divulge membership figures, but affirmed that the Cape Girardeau chapter's once-dwindling membership is growing once again.

Sterling, an insurance agent and financial adviser, has been helped in the revitalization by his wife, Bernice Coar-Cobb, a university professor. Coar-Cobb, the vice president of the NAACP branch, is an able speech writer who sometimes helps her husband answer interview questions.

In the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict, Sterling spoke out at forums held at Southeast Missouri State University and Central High School.

The NAACP has hosted a city-wide prayer vigil, and has honored the city's athletes and scholars. When a rumor spread that a "White Pride" rally was being planned during Riverfest, the NAACP proposed the city enact a "dehooding" ordinance.

It also has sponsored a "Community Awareness Program" at City Hall discussing housing, workforce integration and education issues. Sterling has lobbied the city to activate its long-dormant housing authority and to take steps to build public housing.

Earlier this year NAACP members rallied on behalf of renters, and urged the city council to strengthen the city housing regulations.

After the riot that followed the Rodney King verdict, Sterling also was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Relations Service to help identify situations that could lead to civil unrest.

The program is called Distant Early Warning System. Sterling said he has informed the Justice Department of his concerns about the city's lack of housing, high unemployment or under-employment in the black community, a lack of facilities in predominantly black areas of town, and a lack of communication between blacks and the police.

The NAACP also has undertaken a survey of large employers to determine which ones may be engaging in deficient minority employment practices. Sterling said problems have been discovered. "The problem is getting people who have been discriminated against on the job to stand up for themselves."

Under the national leadership of Chavis, the NAACP is going to begin moving more swiftly to underline the importance of economic issues, Sterling predicts. "And Dr. Chavis is making the NAACP international, including Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans in our struggle."

With the city holding ward elections in the spring, Sterling said the time is ripe to put people from the neighborhoods in power.

Through a tenure as mayor, he said, "I intend to bury racism because right now it's alive and well and it's killing the dreams of hundreds of people in Cape Girardeau whose daily lives remain nightmarish."

The NAACP and Sterling are not without detractors in the black community. Annie M. Williams, a retiree who refers to the organization as "that damn NAACP," said she quit the chapter after the Vietnam War because she was discriminated against for being Catholic.

She views Sterling as a naysayer: "All they've done is drag up negative things. You cannot blame a race of people for anything that's happening."

She pointed out that it was the predominantly white service clubs that started the Civic Center, which is used primarily by blacks. "They had a dream just like Martin Luther King," she said.

Louise Wren, former director of the Civic Center and a former member of the NAACP, said she became uninvolved in the organization simply because "I got too lazy to attend."

Sterling is to be applauded for boosting its visibility, she said. "He's been over here to my house. He sure wants you to get involved."

Wren said Sterling "has lifted it up. I'm going to rejoin."

But Debra Mitchell-Braxton, assistant dean of students at Southeast Missouri State University, questions whether a single organization such as the NAACP can lead the charge any longer.

"The NAACP can't do all things for all individual African Americans," she said. "There's got to be help from organizations that are not just earmarked for African Americans."

Mitchell-Braxton, who is a member of the NAACP, said education and the church are examples of institutions that must help change come about.

"If we only depend on that organization (the NAACP), that's not going to break down the barriers," she said. "If the NAACP had that much power to diffuse racism there wouldn't be any."

"...An organization is only as good as the people in it," Mitchell-Braxton said. "I don't think the NAACP can be the only avenue African Americans can count on."

She supports the idea behind marching again in Washington. "It's still important to always continue to persist in change. We haven't reached equality by any means."

Unfortunately, Mitchell-Braxton said, most of the inequalities that brought out about 200,000 marchers 30 years ago still exist.

"We haven't made great strides. There's still a lot of things people can look at.... There still is not parity in employment and educational and housing situations. If there were we could find more role models and mentors."

She reiterated that achieving equality cannot be the job of a single organization.

"All mankind should bear the burdens."