NAACP After heading group since 1996, president decides to call it quits

He is credited with guiding the association into stability with corporate-style techniques.
BALTIMORE (AP) -- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume announced Tuesday that he is stepping down after a nearly nine-year tenure in which he helped rescue the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group from debt and scandal.
Mfume, 56, said he wanted to spend more time with his family, namely his 14-year-old son. He became misty-eyed at a news conference as he described how the son -- the youngest of his six children -- has come to know a world of airplanes and news conferences for most of his life.
"I don't want to miss another basketball game. I want to sew on his varsity letter on his sweater," Mfume said of his son, who recently made the basketball team. "I just need a break. I need a vacation."
Mfume, whose adopted West African name translates to "conquering son of kings," began his career as a dashiki-clad popular radio talk show host and political activist in the 1970s and transformed himself into one of the nation's foremost civil rights leaders.
Scandal and debt
Kweisi Mfume inherited an organization tarnished by scandal and burdened by a $3.2 million debt when he took over as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in early 1996. He is credited with steering it into an era of stability and growth with corporate-style management techniques.
"For the last nine years, I've had what I believe is both the honor and the privilege to help revive and to help restore this great organization," said Mfume, a former congressman and Baltimore city council member. "In my heart of hearts, I know the job has been done.
Shortly before his announcement, Mfume said he received a phone call from senior White House adviser Karl Rove who extended best wishes on behalf of President Bush, who is traveling.
He also spoke with other civil rights and political leaders, including Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a Republican who is black, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.