In Black America; The NAACP's Operation Fair Share and The Crisis Magazine

music music music music music music music music I'm John Hanson, join me this week on In Black America for a look at the NAACP's Crisis Magazine and Operation Fair Share. All of our agreements call for an ongoing monitoring process. The NAACP's Crisis Magazine and Operation Fair Share this week on In Black America. This is In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Magazine entitled The Crisis is celebrating its 75th birthday this year. The Crisis Magazine has been the official publication of the NAACP. The Crisis Magazine became the first Black political journal with National Circulation. The magazine was founded by Black Scala and Civil Rights leader W.E.V. Du Bois who published the first issue in November of 1910, year after the founding of the NAACP. The primary goal of the crisis was to reach Black America and others to set forth those facts and arguments with show the danger of race and prejudice, which Du Bois wrote in that first issue.

I'm John Hanson and this week our focus is on the NAACP's The Crisis Magazine and Operation Fair Share in Black America. I think it's progression very well considering the limited staff we have. We've signed agreement so far with about 32 companies among them, Prove a Grocerous Safeway, Disney, MGM, UA, Churches, McDonald's, Cools, and I'm sorry I can't think of all them by name but we've signed something like a 30-degree match. Just to say one word about those agreements, they are tremendously important because they represent a breakthrough in terms of putting Blacks on both the directors, Blacks and C-Imaginamization. The biggest part has been ordered under for leadership and we're talking about the garment, not just banks or counters or janitors, but new high-tech businesses. We have discovered so far we have not signed a agreement during most, we have not tried to get one with them but they do so many hundred million dollars that's almost amazing and

they've created that market by being aggressive about it. Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The major thrust of the NAACP's Economic Development Program is Operation Fair Share. The Fair Share Program was initiated in December of 1981 to broaden the organization's approach to civil rights to include economic rights. Operation Fair Share is based on the premise that Black collective spending power should be used to bring corporate America to the bargaining table, to negotiate equal employment and business opportunities by advocating, promotion and hiring of Blacks and mid-level and senior level employment positions, appointments of Blacks to corporate boards of directors, and corporate contributions to Black organizations and causes. I recently spoke with Fred Rashid, the Economic Development Director of the NAACP. Well, I think it's natural that the largest oldest and most effective civil rights organization

would take on the cause of economic injustice. And it's in line with historically the NAACP's post in terms of advocating for equal rights. One of the main three objectives of the Fair Share Program. Well, the Fair Share Program has five principal objectives and those objectives are employment of Blacks and major corporations, promotion of Blacks and to senior and mid-level management positions, inclusion of Blacks on corporate boards, increased purchasing of procurement opportunities for Black owned businesses, and a fair and equitable share of philanthropic contributions. How would you all go about in checking the records of these corporations, or are you just going to take their word forward, will there be any periodic check to see if they're meeting the five goals? All of our agreements call for an ongoing monitoring process whereby we meet with the companies periodically, usually every six months, surely, no more than a year after agreements have been signed, depending on the company and the industry.

In fact, we have met with most of the companies that we have signed with to date, the only ones that we haven't met with, the companies such as McDonald's and churches, who we recently signed with. To be honest with you, we have met with some companies where the progress has not been what we expected. We have let those companies know that, that we are disappointed, and we are looking for improvement in terms of meeting the goals and objectives that those companies have set in conjunction with the NACP. Did you name the companies? No, I don't want to do that. I don't think it would be fair, but at some point in time, if some of these companies do not shape up, we will be publicly naming those companies and in fact denouncing the agreement. How many companies are online right now with the fair share agreement with the NACP? We've signed 30, this is the 30th agreement, the K-Mart agreement. Right now, we're negotiating with three or four other major national corporations. Many of our branches are negotiating with some local entities.

So by the end of this year, we probably will sign around 35 agreements, but I want to emphasize that the name of the game in 85 and probably 86 is the going back and doing the monitoring and reviewing implementation to see that the fruits of our labor are coming forward. The seeds we've planted are bearing fruit, so that's what we'll be concentrating more the remainder this year and 86 on. If there's election process of the companies you are going to try to have participating in your fair share program, in the beginning it was utilities programs in 83 and now it's more like large corporations. Well, the initial industry that we looked at was the movie industry. In fact, our first two agreements were with two major studios, MGM, UA and Walt Disney. Then we began to look at the utility industry because they are an industry that's present in all our communities.

We all patronize them by necessity and they are sensitive to regulatory commissions and so forth of rate hearings. Are the any other programs to sign the fair share program that the NAACP is initiating or evolved in as far as getting more economic development for the black community and getting the black dollar to stay in the black community? I'm glad you asked that. We have for the third year conduct in a national demonstration called black dollar days and we've done it last two years over the Labor Day week. This year we'll be conducting the black dollar demonstration from September 2nd to 9th, asking black Americans throughout the country to spend two dollar bills and Susan B. Anthony dollar coins for their purchases. How did the black dollar day do the last two previous years? The first year we conducted it, we ran a check and found out as near as we could that 35 million dollars was converted and spent nationally. We did that by checking with the Federal Reserve Bank and they compared the figures from the

previous year when they were in the dollar day demonstration to determine how much that money was moved out of their vaults and into various banks. In 85, we, 84, I'm sorry, we feel that we probably fell a little short in 35 million somewhere around 28, 27, 28 million. So there are any workshops here to give minority contractors or vendors an opportunity to broaden their spectrum as far as being able to sell their goods and services. Yes, we have a black business opportunity seminar scheduled today, Monday, June 24th and 1.30 to 4.30, we've invited eight major corporations to come in to talk about purchasing opportunities for black businesses with their respective companies. That is the second of a series of seminars that will be conducting in 85. The first one was held in Atlanta on March 22nd.

The next one will be held in Detroit the third week in August and then we'll be moving to New York and then to California. In addition, we received from the press, they said this may be the most important NAACP convention of this decade. Do you concur with that and if not, well, if yes, why? Well, I think that I concur and I think that we as black folks in a very critical period in terms of our progress and development in this country will fight in some very serious battles when you look at the insensitivity on the part of the present administration and some of the other problems that exist in our communities, whether it be drugs, teenage pregnancies, single parent homes, we have numerous problems that we need to address as a people. Thank you. Thank you. Internally, some externally. Fred Rossi, Director of Economic Development for the National Association for the Advancement of Color People.

This year marks the 75th birthday of the crisis magazine. The crisis has been the official publication of the NAACP since it was founded one year after the organization was founded in 1909. Today, the crisis has a new editor, Mr. Fred Bolford. Mr. Bolford has revamped the look and format of the publication to include traveling tips, reviews of the arts, including music, the theater and dance. I recently spoke with Mr. Bolford at the NAACP's 76th Annual Convention in Dallas, Texas. Actually, I was referred to the job by Tom Johnson, who used to be with him at times. He was actually one of my professors at NYU. And I've worked in magazines. I've published two magazines, edited two magazines in the past, one in New York and one in Los Angeles called New World. So I have, and I've taught magazine management at USC at University of California at Berkeley.

Now I'm teaching in the Department of Journalism at NYU. So I have a really strong background in magazines, particularly journalism in general, public relations, all aspects of media, but I'm basically a specialist in magazine. What particular challenge do you foresee in putting out the crisis magazine? Well, let me say this, when I took over the editorship of the crisis, I was actually astonished at what the resources that was available to me. If you understand anything about publishing these days, the name of the game really isn't quantity per se, but quality, quality demographics, it's a demographic battle. If you look at the demographics, meaning the generalized mailing list of the crisis, the nature of the people who receive the magazine, you find that on the all categories, income level, educational level, managerial, professional level, the crisis readership, far exceeds every black publication in America, and far exceeds most white publications.

You have a medium income there of something like $33,000, $54% of graduated from college, graduate, not a 10, 54% graduated, over 60% of professional managerial. You have really an excellent audience, and plus you have over 300,000 paid subscribers, which translates, because you have to add on factor into over a million readers. The crisis easily, given those set of circumstances, could become the premier magazine, not only in black America, but one of the premier magazines in the country. And I explained that position to Mr. Hoax, when I took the job, and he agreed with me. And that's really my mandate. My mandate is to become the premier magazine, and that's what we're set out to do, and that's what we're going to do. Why has crisis been so successful when you're opinion the definition of the demographics that you just spoke about? Because it really wasn't a crisis necessarily, because the NLACP has been successful. I mean, if you joined the NLACP, you automatically get a subscription to the crisis.

If anything, the crisis hadn't caught up or kept up with the organization. And it's logical, if you think about it, because actually, when I was teaching my magazine management class in USC, I had a section on the nonprofit magazine, nonprofit magazines can be very lucrative and very powerful. For example, Smithsonian magazine is a nonprofit magazine. It's a very successful commentary, which is published by the American Jewish Congress as a nonprofit magazine. It's very influential. It may not be financially successful, it's extremely influential. These types of magazines can be extremely lucrative and extremely influential. I think that what had happened at the NLACP was that they didn't have someone there. And with the magazine, who really was approaching it as a magazine, as a publishing venture, as opposed to as an extension of the organization.

And I think when they hired me, that's what they were looking at. The fact that I'm really a publisher, editor, professional, and my expertise is in this field. In other words, I don't want Ben Hoax's job. Have you changed any of the structure or layout of the crisis since becoming publisher? Yes, it's been totally revamped. Again, one of the things that we know in this business is that we live in a very visual culture, whether we like it or not. If you look at the old crisis back in the days when people read a lot, you didn't need a lot of illustration. You didn't need a lot of graphic, you didn't have to be very conscious of the layout and the presentation. Although I must say looking at some of the early issues that the boys put out, he was very conscious of layout. It was actually surprisingly well done graphically. And so that's one of the first things I did was to revamp it physically, to reformat the magazine, to have a much more visual look to the book.

So people, it really basically are in presenting a nice package. And that's really what it's about. People respond to that. And every people have been walking up to me and say, yeah, you know, I've been reading a crisis lately. I don't know what it is, but there's something different about it. They can't put their fingers on it, but they know now suddenly they're more interested in the magazine. And basically, if you really look at it, although I've added a lot of columns, I've put it in an art section, full blown art section where we have theater, dance, music, record reviews, and criticism, when book criticism, where they only blackmags in the country, at this point, has really done legitimate literary criticism, art criticism, and added a travel section, restaurant section, all the things, you know, basically when people as a magazine professional, and I hate to say this, but I've been in business long enough to know this, I would probably say that only three people actually read the magazine from cover to cover.

One is myself, the other is my copy editor, and the third person is a typesetter. Everybody else reads elements. They pick out an article, they like it, it's good. Okay, so the key to really, and this is my secret, this is both a secret, you guys are getting this for free, is that the way you package one of these products on magazine, is that you understand that, and you try to make sure there are enough elements in there, so somebody's going to find something in there that they like. If somebody finds one article in there that they like, as far as they're concerned, it's a good magazine. Do you have a good number of reporters or writers on staff, or do you have stringers throughout the country reporting on different regions for the NAACP? Well, at this point now, because I had worked for 15 years with two magazines, one in New York, one in LA, I had what you call an editorial staff already in place, and all I had to do really was put the word out and they came flocking in, which gave me kind of a structure. But as you well know in this business, we eat up reporters, we eat up ideas, and people,

so we constantly need people coming in. In addition to that, I need really, which is going to be really my major thrust next year, is to really try to get more people from the southern region. I mean, I fairly well have, because I've worked in those markets, the East Coast, that sector, and the West Coast, California covered. I mean, it's a huge country, and black people all over the country, it's a national magazine, so to be truly a national magazine, obviously you're going to have to have things coming in from other sources from around the country. So I am constantly looking for people, looking for writers, looking for ideas from all over the place, so we can be the magazine we really want to become, which is a national magazine, premier black magazine in this country, and one of the most influential, most powerful magazines, period in the country. The June, July issue, particularly, has a story on the new chairman of the board, Mr.

Dr. William Gibson, but also has an extensive article on the situation, minorities, particularly blacks finding themselves in the journalistic industry. Why was this particularly important for you to have this as one of the feature articles during this convention and during the summer months? Well, that's the name of the game, you know, it's like if you look at what is occurring right now, before our very eyes with the hostage crisis, and basically what these people are seeking is access to mass media. I mean, you know, that's how you prove you exist in this world, is to see yourself on television when you get home that night, and that's how you get your ideas across, and that's what sets the agenda that gives you a sense of reality, and we're not only just talking about television, we're talking about motion pictures, if you ask people about the history of this country, they'll recite this long history, and if you really break it down, you see a lot of it just came out of motion pictures. It may not mean anything, but you see, this is where we're getting our reality from the

media, and radio, television, motion pictures, record industry, all of these mass methods of communication are very important. One of the things that we have been struggling under for years and years since we've been in this country is our image, our sense of who we are, as a people, as individuals, and the kind of messages that we've been getting back is that, no, well, you guys are really not that cool, you know, you guys sing and dance a lot, but you're just basically not cool. And it was only when we do the civil rights movement, interesting enough, was the first demonstration of the use of media to gain power and television, and one of the reasons why Martin Luther King was successful was that he fought the first television war. Would a crisis still have its fighting spirit writers as far as arousing the fighting spirit in black Americans and other Americans?

I would hope so, I would hope so, the, again, we have, we're broad enough, we have a, we have the mandate, we have the readers who are interested, and anytime you're involved in ideas, anytime you're involved in issues, anytime you're really involved in creative arts, you're talking about controversy, you're talking about rockin' the boat, you're talking about provoking, it's automatic, unless if you're not doing that, then you're not doing your job. Now low power television basically means that unlike regular stations which can broadcast in a wide radius, low power may only broadcast in maybe a 15 mile radius, well what's the potential that for let's say for black communities, I mean, I think South Dallas is a black community, they could have their own television station broadcasting there, that those kind of potentials exist for low power, the impact of VCR, the impact of direct satellite broadcasting, all these things which constitute narrow casting we need to look at, and we also have an interview

with Robert Johnson who is the president of BET, black entertainment, a network which is the only black national programming cable service to get his overview since he's really one of the few people that are really in there dealing with this phenomenon, as you well know, narrow casting has yet to prove itself as an economic, viable economic enterprise, I mean basically it's not a lot of money being made in that area but there's a lot of people getting involved in it, and again when you look at it it's the same old people who own broadcasting you see what I mean, so again minorities will come up a little short unless they really begin to understand, first of all become aware these things exist and when you say aware you don't expect a mass movement towards anything, but who knows just one person may read the article and say hey you know I'm going to look into this and there they go.

I'm particularly concerned about our young people, will there be a place in the crisis for young riders, particularly teenage riders to write about problems of teenagers of being a young person who isn't in America, has that crossed your mind? Well one of the issues that I want to deal with is an issue on the black male, the young black males, as you know this person, this entity is probably the most troubled single entity in America, probably next to Native Americans, and you know you've seen statistics that black male is more than likely to die before the age of 23 at the hands of another young black male in New York City, they have a dropout rate from high school of 72 percent. I mean that's incredible when you think about that and we're moving into this complicated age and I have a variety of articles planned for that special issue on the black male, young black male.

One of the things I wanted to do for the crisis interview is I'm having my son do and he's 20 years old. He's put together a bunch of young guys, young black males cross-section and have a wrap, just you know put a microphone and a tape recorder right down the middle and let them talk about women, let them talk about religion, let them talk about nuclear weapons, let them really talk about what's really bothering them, what's really on their mind. I think that one of the reasons why these young blacks and young black males in particular get into so much trouble is that I think they really basically want someone to listen to them that they have a lot to say but what has happened unfortunately is that adults are just afraid of them, they're just afraid of them, they don't know what to do with them and so as a result they're very frustrated and that frustration unfortunately in a lot of cases turns the violence, turns to drug use and dropouts and all that kind of stuff. So we want to deal with that on a non-gone basis but that one way of starting it out

is to do that special issue and concentrating a lot on the young black male because to a large extent the future of that person, that young black male really holds the key to our future in this country. We can't have that kind of to be blunt, dead weight in our with us because we'll just spend 99% of the time dealing with that so we have to find out what is it, how can we really inspire this, I'm not that we're ignoring young females but there really is a major crisis with young black males. How could someone listen to this program, contribute an article or what have you to the crisis? Basically they can contact me at crisis magazine, the address is 186 Rimsons Street and this Brooklyn is 1-0-2-0-1 and the telephone number there is 8-5-8-0-0 and that's Eric Code 7-1-8.

The best way really, and this is not just with me as in magazine editor but any magazine editor, the best thing to do really is not to call but to write a query letter. I have this idea for this article, if they are experienced writers they should enclose maybe some of the things that they have done in the past, some clips, the worst thing to do is to send an article in on spec, a lot of people do it but the chances of it getting printed or you know you just may be wasting your time in other words but if you have an idea and it's something you want to explore, again this is just advice in general if you're interested in being a magazine writer because most magazine writers are not paid staff writers, they are freelance writers but there is a method to go about it and it's really to write a query letter and the other piece of advice I would give them is not to be afraid to write a query letter. Most editors are sitting there 99% of their time waiting for somebody to come up with a good idea because if you know anything about this business as a relentless business we eat up ideas like crazy so if you have an idea please do not hesitate to pick up your

pen, jot a little note down, scribe the idea, how you'd go about it and we'll be in touch with you. Dr. Hook said this may be the most important convention at the end of the way CP have in this decade, do you think her? Yeah you know I mean it is important, I think I was normally impressed with the enthusiasm of the Dell I guess and also the turnout, I mean I guess you'll notice places packed to the rafters and the turnout has been enormous and we are at a critical point in our history. There are a lot of issues we have to deal with, there are a lot of you know attacks on the whole notion of civil rights, the whole notion of these types of organizations whether they have outlived the usefulness and not, again I think Dr. Hook has put it very eloquently when he spoke last night that you know we have come near to solving our problems although again we should emphasize we have gone along what, we have come along what we have done

made enormous progress, enormous progress in my lifetime and I think that that also should be emphasized because sometimes if you develop on the negative you can, this kind of psychology will, you know you get people in the excuse not to try because I said well what's the point you know there's no use, we'll never get anywhere, I mean we have gotten somewhere and you know I, nobody can tell me that we haven't made progress in this country because I know we have but that's not to say that it's over, it's not to say that we haven't made because we don't so it means that we keep struggling and there's nothing wrong with struggling, I mean believe me this is a very exciting struggle, it's when you have it made a life gets boring you know so you know the young people should look at it like that you know they should look at struggle as being a very positive thing you know that's when you know you're alive, that's when you know that's when all you can use your entire being and not be afraid of struggle, Mr. Fred Beaufort the new editor of the crisis magazine and Fred Rashid directly on the NAACP's economic development program, if you have a comment

or would like to purchase a cassette copy of this program write us the address is in black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 7-H7-12, we're in black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John Hanson, join us next week. You've been listening to In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.