NAACP Leader Criticizes U.S. Official

The executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), speaking at a Lehman Hall press conference yesterday, said that Blacks have been neglected by the Republican Party but exploited by the Democrats in recent years.

"If there's any lesson we should have learned from this election, it's that this is a two party country," said Benjamin I. Hooks, who visited Harvard to commemorate the NAACP's 75th anniversary.

"We've learned that the Black vote by itself cannot elect a president. We need a coalition," he added.

Diamond Jubilee

The Harvard Foundation for Race Relations invited Hooks to Harvard to celebrate the NAACP's anniversary because several alumni, including W.E.B. DuBois Class of 1890, were instrumental in founding the organization.

The Foundation hosted a black tie dinner in Hooks's honor at Lehman Hall.

Hooks fielded questions from reporters and University officials, including President Bok, during a 30 minute session that preceded the dinner.

'A Long Way, Baby'

"In 75 years, we've come a long way, baby," Hooks said, reflecting on the NAACP's accomplishments.

He predicted that the Republican Party would take steps to attract Black voters in the next election.

"After the next four years, the sane minds of the Republican party will realize that its no good to start out the election with 10 million votes against you," he said.

The 59-year-old civil rights leader denounced U.S. Civil Rights Commission Chairman Clarence Pendleton Jr. for accusing him and other civil rights leaders of fostering divisiveness through "racial politics."

"It's criminal for him to be making those kinds of statements, and I will work hard to see that he does not have a platform to say those sorts of things," said Hooks.

The controversial Pendleton has drawn fire from minority leaders for his opposition to affirmative action quotas and other civil rights initiatives.

In a recent speech, he lashed out at the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, former Urban League President Vernon E. Jordan, and Hooks, charging that they led blacks to a "political Jonestown" in the presidential election.

Hooks told the gathering that Pendleton wouldn't have his Administration post "if it weren't for the NAACP."

He said that the organization's goal in upcoming years will be to achieve economic parity for Blacks in the United States.

The highlight of the dinner was a showing of "The Longest Struggle," a documentary about the NAACP. The film's maker, television producer Tony Brown, was also on hand as a guest of the Foundation.

Other guests included Roger Enrico, president and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, which funded the PBS show, and H. Naylor Fitzhugh '30, the first Black graduate of the Business School