Bond said the NAACP, which is based in Baltimore, would immediately search for a successor who could ensure that "our mission of social justice advocacy strengthens and grows" approaching the organization's 100th anniversary in 2009. He said the search would include candidates from the nonprofit, corporate and civil rights communities.
Bond said he had named NAACP general counsel Dennis Hayes as interim president.
An official who asked not to be identified said that Hayes, who also filled in after Kweisi Mfume resigned the presidency in 2004 after nine years, was regarded as the logical choice and was widely viewed as having no aspirations for a permanent leadership role.
Gordon is expected to officially leave this month. He succeeded Mfume in August 2005, shortly after winning unanimous approval by the 64-member board.
Gordon spent 35 years at Verizon and Bell of Pennsylvania, beginning as a management trainee and finishing as president of retail markets. In 2002, Fortune magazine ranked him the sixth most powerful black executive in America.
Founded by a multiracial group of activists, the 500,000-member NAACP has long served as the nation's leading civil rights organization, monitoring equal opportunity laws and conducting voter mobilization drives. The last business figure to serve as leader of the NAACP was Walter White, an Atlanta insurance executive, from 1931 to 1955.
tom.hamburger@latimes.com
stuart.silverstein@latimes.com
*
Hamburger reported from Washington and Silverstein from Los Angeles.
