NAACP Calls For Selective Spending to Prod Stores

Even companies that make an effort to work with minority-owned businesses typically spend barely 5 percent of their contracting dollars with them, the NAACP president said yesterday.

African Americans should not spend money with companies that don't hire them or advertise in their communities, said NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon.

"If corporations spend their money on us, we'll spend our money with those corporations," he said. "It's real simple."

Gordon's comments were part of his first keynote convention speech as head of the civil rights group; he took over as president last August. More than 4,000 people are attending the 97th annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which runs through Thursday at the Washington Convention Center.

The NAACP has graded corporations since 1997 on how well they work with blacks in employment, charitable giving, advertising, contracting and community service. This year, the civil rights group looked at the telecommunications, lodging, finance, retail and auto industries.

Most companies did best on charitable giving and community service and worst on hiring and contracting. Gordon called the contracting numbers "totally unacceptable."

Gordon, a former division president at Verizon, said that directing black consumer dollars will push companies to be more responsive.

He called on blacks to stop shopping at Target, in particular, until the company answers the NAACP's questions -- though he stopped short of calling the action a boycott.

"They didn't even care to respond to our survey," he said. "Stay out of their stores."

The group does not plan to picket Target or distribute leaflets but will rely on word of mouth, said John White, an NAACP spokesman.

Target was one of four retailers that ignored the survey, along with Dillard's, Kohl's and Sears. The NAACP focused on Target because it's one of the nation's most prominent national retail chains, White said.

A Target spokeswoman said via e-mail that the company opted out of the survey "because Target views diversity as being inclusive of all people from all different backgrounds, not just one group." The NAACP survey asks only about blacks.

She added that minorities make up 40 percent of Target employees and 23 percent of officials and managers.

During his keynote address, Gordon said black Americans should end their "victimlike thinking" and seize opportunities to help close gaps between the nation's rich and poor.

"We may not have all the power that we want, but we have all the power that we need," Gordon said. "All we have to do is believe it and use it."