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Ron Edwards: NAACP branch "misplaced" $86,000 in 2001-2002
Originally posted on the Minneapolis Issues list:
Subj: Ron Edwards: NAACP branch "misplaced" $86,266 in 2001-2002
Date: 3/22/2005 9:35:34 AM Central Standard Time
From: Socialist2001 (Doug Mann)
Edited, with new content enclosed by [ ]
On the Sunday, March 20, 2005 edition of "Black Focus," (a cable show hosted by Ron Edwards), Ron Edwards again called attention to $86,266 in investment funds which [Minneapolis NAACP] branch officers say were misplaced in 2001-2002 (see article pasted below). [Edwards also voiced a rumor that in 2001-2002 about $86,000 in Minneapolis NAACP branch funds were loaned to someone for investment in grocery stores].
At a branch membership meeting on May 31, 2003, acting branch treasurer Sam Richardson acknowledged that $86,266 in investment funds had been "misplaced." [The May 31 meeting was adjourned without getting any business done, then reconvened on June 7, 2003. The treasurers report was not accepted on June 7 or at the regularly scheduled June 2003 membership meeting because the Treasurer did not disclose what happened to the $86,266, and did not offer any documentation].
At the July 2003 membership meeting, Rev. Al Gallmon (who was NAACP branch president for 8 months in 2003) reported that the investment funds were tracked to a Piper-Jaffrey investment account. The faction led by Edwards had the support of a large majority of members in voting to not accept any treasurers' reports until branch officers provided documentation to show what happened to the "misplaced" investment funds.
Edward was put on trial in September 2003 and expelled from the NAACP in October 2003. Edwards was charged with making public comments related to the NAACP and top NAACP officers, including Kweisi Mfume, considered "inimical to the interests of the NAACP." Edwards had already been removed from the Branch Executive Committee and publicly censured in 2002 for the same offense. I testified at the trial of Ron Edward and submitted hard evidence that I had engaged in the type of conduct which resulted in disciplinary action against Edwards, Evelyn Eubanks, and others, i.e., making public comments about the NAACP. Yet I never faced any disciplinary action for making public comments about the NAACP (a crime that I committed more than anybody in the branch, with the possible exception of Ron Edwards).
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Minneapolis NAACP goes broke
By: Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 3/10/2004
Mr. Greenspan, we need your help
Frank Humphries arrived in Minneapolis in late 1999 to provide administrative direction to the Minneapolis Branch of the NAACP. One of his first acts was to recover $75,000 from a secret bank account maintained by previous leaders.
Mr. Humphries put into place financial mechanisms so that the membership could not be misled again. This is why it was so depressing to discover a week ago Saturday that the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP, which had enjoyed a surplus of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, is unaccountably broke.
Just as the sportscaster used to say ''Roll the tape for highlights,'' I'm rolling the files: Every figure in this column is backed by official documents attesting to their truth and authenticity.
The local NAACP branch invested $86,266 with Piper Jaffrey in 2001-2002; now, on May 31, 2003, they say that it has been ''misplaced.'' It is disturbing to learn that the branch cannot or will not account for this or the hundreds of thousands of other dollars it has received. It is troubling that the stewards of the branch pushed it over the financial cliff into the abyss of insolvency...
For the full text go to
http://spokesman-recorder.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=39992&sID=16
-Doug Mann, King Field
member-at-large, Minneapolis NAACP branch executive committee
www.educationright.com
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