NAACP's Huffman assailed for tobacco, telecom payments

The president of the California NAACP has been paid $100,000 by a campaign account funded by tobacco giant Philip Morris at the same time that the civil-rights organization is siding with the cigarette-maker in opposing a tobacco-tax on the November ballot. Alice Huffman, who has served as president of the state NAACP since 1999, is also on retainer by AT&T for $12,000 per month--a fact she never disclosed to her organization--even as Huffman testified on behalf of the NAACP in support of major legislation to ease access for the phone company into the lucrative cable industry. The campaign payments to Huffman's political company, A.C. Public Affairs, come only a year after the firm was paid $330,000 in consulting fees by the pharmaceutical industry. In 2005, the state NAACP sided with the drug companies' position on two ballot measures. Those payments to Huffman, coupled with NAACP endorsements, have some activists in the African-American community wondering where exactly Huffman's consulting operation ends and the NAACP begins. "These are very questionable kinds of activities," says Joe Hicks, former executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil-rights organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. "That she's receiving money from industry folks and all of a sudden is carrying the water for their interests--it should raise some eyebrows." Meanwhile, Philip Morris, the drug industry and AT&T are three of the largest financial backers of the California NAACP. The money illuminates an ongoing debate within the black community about the increasing financial dependence of the nation's pre-eminent civil-rights organization on money from large corporate donors. Since her election in 1999, Huffman has transformed the California NAACP--largely on the strength of corporate money--from an officeless association to an organization with a nearly half-million-dollar annual budget. ... Read the rest of here