Its only an accounting error
Via Philly Com
A CONTROVERSY sparked by three NAACP board members leading a revolt against the local president began with questions about money. It shattered long friendships. Now it has turned both personal and warthog ugly.
Under attack is Stetson-wearing, longtime local NAACP president Jerry Mondesire, accused of playing a shell game with two checks totaling $10,500 intended for the NAACP – one for $10,000, another for $500.
There is little question the NAACP’s finances are precarious. Philadelphia Gas Works last month slapped a lien on the civil-rights organization for $821.83.
The three former NAACP leaders are 2nd vice president Sid Booker, 3rd VP Donald “Ducky” Birts, and the Rev. Elisha Morris, assistant secretary and youth director.
On his advice, attorney Gerard Egan told me, the three took leaves of absence.
Much of this was first reported by the website AxisPhilly.org
Mondesire had declined to discuss this with the mainstream press, until now. He says NAACP policy doesn’t permit leaves of absence and he’s asked the national office to expel the three leaders. That decision is expected next month, he says.
The former leaders have asked the national office to take over the chapter and audit the books. They alleged Mondesire rules by intimidation and threats.
Heading the “ongoing inquiry” into the finances of the Philadelphia NAACP is the Rev. Gill Ford, NAACP national director of unit compliance. He has met with several people, but “the complaining parties have rejected both our meeting requests as well as our requests for documentation,” he told me.
The three men are decades-long friends and supporters of Mondesire, says ex-board member Anthony Jackson, who calls the mess a “family feud.”
Blood feud is more accurate.
According to Mondesire (who has called his critics “a gang of backstabbers”), he dismissed Birts from working on the NAACP Freedom Fund Gala because he used NAACP contacts to solicit for his own Ducky Birts Foundation banquet.
“That’s such a bunch of bulls—,” says Birts, who says he gave his contacts to the NAACP. “Jerry’s trying to take me down because he’s going down.”
Mondesire says, “Lots of people use the NAACP as a personal hustle.” His critics say the same about him.
ccording to Mondesire, Booker turned against him because he “has been lusting after my girlfriend for the last five years. As we say in the ‘hood, this is a pure [N-word] mess.”
Glad I didn’t say that.
“There’s no truth to that whatsoever,” Booker told me. “I haven’t spoken to her in the last five or six years.” He said Mondesire “started out doing a helluva job” some years ago, “but somewhere he went off the track.”
According to Mondesire, he dismissed Morris as youth counselor because of poor performance.
“He’s lying,” Morris told me. “The Youth Council is separate and apart from the NAACP. I’m elected by the youth.”
It’s bad when a man of the cloth calls you a liar.
“NAACP money is supposed to be deposited in the NAACP account,” Morris said.