SCLC, former officers wrangle over leadership in Florida

Former officers of the Florida state chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference are refusing to step aside after national leaders in Atlanta dissolved their chapter.

Earlier this month the SCLC dissolved ties with the Florida chapter. New leadership will be elected Friday.

National leaders say they cut the ties because Florida failed to keep at least three local chapters organized and because of other factors they would not discuss.

Florida leaders allege the move is in retaliation for questions they are raising about how the SCLC is spending money. After the SCLC moved against the state chapter, the Florida president Sevell Brown III wrote to the U.S. Attorney General alleging that money is missing from national coffers.

Dexter Wimbish, the SCLC's attorney, said those allegations are based on mistakes in reading financial documents. Former Florida chapter members are just trying to keep power, he said.

"It is unfortunate that some people, when you wrest power and control from them, will do anything to try and keep it — even destroy the organization," Wimbish said.

The SCLC was founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other icons of the civil rights movement in 1957.

By 2005, it was teetering financially, bringing in little more than $300,000. The organization hired former Alabama state Sen. Charles Steele as president. Under his watch, income passed $1 million. Expenses also grew, and the board increased Steele's salary from $32,000 in 2005 to $75,000 in 2007.

Steele resigned six months ago. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

The Rev. Byron Clay of Louisiana is interim president.

This is the fourth state chapter reorganized in three years, Wimbish said. The others were Louisiana, Virginia and Maryland.

A Compliance Committee can recommend dissolution for many reasons, such Florida's lack of effectiveness, he said.

Brown, the former Florida state president, and its attorney Jonathan Alpert claim they remain legitimate office holders. Brown said he raised questions to the SCLC about finances before the current disagreement, but he did not notify federal authorities because he did not think the Bush administration would react fairly.

Brown said his questions about missing money came from SCLC documents turned in to the Internal Revenue Service.

Alpert said that in 2007, more than $1 million given to the nonprofit SCLC Foundation, a separate organization controlled by SCLC board members, did not show up in the SCLC form 990, a yearly IRS financial report.

Wimbish said the foundation files its own 990 form. He said the money was used for new offices on Auburn Avenue and did not have to be routed through the SCLC.

Both the national office and the foundation are audited every year, Wimbush said."We welcome any review by the attorney general," he said.