New State NAACP Leader Is Known for Speaking Out

In the late 1950s, a bit of routine Jim Crow racism touched a nerve in Jose De Sosa, and he felt something he never had while growing up in the openly segregated Panama Canal Zone: embarrassment.

He and his Air Force colleagues had gone to breakfast in a diner outside Miami. A waitress took the orders of the white men first and, when she brought the food, she told De Sosa and other blacks that they would have to eat around back. The entire group left the restaurant.

De Sosa has come far from that encounter with racism. After nine years as head of the NAACP San Fernando Valley Branch, he was elected president Jan. 8 of the organization’s California conference, a new unit combining three regional divisions that for years split the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People’s voice in the state.

The picture of De Sosa that emerges in interviews with him and those who know him is that of an outspoken leader who identifies gut-level grievances, especially civil-rights violations, and argues his case forcefully and articulately.

“He is not a person who sits back and waits for things to happen,” said John Mance, a founder of the Valley branch and a former member of the NAACP national board.

He also was described as a steady supporter--though not necessarily a leader--of efforts to improve the black community.

“He’s very firmly based in the reality of people’s lives,” said Joan Howarth, assistant legal director of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Others, however, said he is not a visionary or a strong leader. They said they would not look to him to define complex or subtle issues and devise strategies for addressing them.

“I think that Mr. De Sosa is a good vehicle for the NAACP,” said Marie Harris, vice president of the Pacoima Chamber of Commerce. “However, I think he should surround himself with more people who really understand the issues and who can speak to the issues.”

De Sosa ‘Not Capable’

Eleazu Obinna, a professor of Pan-African studies at California State University, Northridge and a supporter of the United Crusade Foundation, a political rival of the NAACP in Pacoima, said De Sosa has presided over a decline in leadership of the black community. “To be frank,” Obinna said, De Sosa “is not capable” of statewide leadership.

Associates said De Sosa has labored for years to address basic community problems. He is best known in Los Angeles for his actions on two emotional, highly publicized causes.

He briefly held the national spotlight in 1982, when a Pacoima man died after a chokehold was applied by a Los Angeles police officer. De Sosa led an outpouring of community rage.

He was largely responsible for the ensuing police ban on chokeholds, said Bill Cowdin, secretary of the Los Angeles Police Commission. “He’s an effective speaker. He starts rather softly and builds--he is good at swaying the emotions of the crowd.”

De Sosa also led a community protest against the Los Angeles Police Department’s first use of a motorized battering ram to enter the Pacoima home of a suspected drug dealer. Inside were three children, no drug dealer and very few drugs.

Whatever his successes in those battles, critics say, De Sosa failed to use them to solidify his organization.

“He seemed to me to make a lot of noise, and that seemed to me to be about it,” said someone who played a major role in the campaign against the chokehold and asked not to be identified.

Asked about that criticism, Mance said, “While we have long talked about becoming proactive rather than reactive, what we’ve found is that there’s so much to react to that we seldom have time to be proactive.”

De Sosa, a short, broad man with a short-clipped goatee, acknowledged last week that the battles against the chokehold and the battering ram defined his public image and that of the branch.

But, he said, the branch also has pursued other, less-controversial goals: dissuading the Girl Scouts of America from curtailing its Pacoima program, supporting anti-drug rallies, working on the “Overground Railroad” campaign to register voters and get them to the polls, and backing the name change for Santa Barbara Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

He said he has seen no need in the Valley for economic campaigns to guarantee jobs and contracts for minorities from major corporations, such as the Fair Share campaign the Los Angeles branch waged on McDonald’s restaurants and the Adolph Coors Co.

“We’ve not had a situation where blacks or other minorities were subjected to such blatant discrimination that we could go after Fair Share,” De Sosa said in an interview. “We have some major corporations here, but for some reason, we have a good working relationship with them. . . . We have been more of a monitor, bird-dog type of thing, where we go after the jugular vein when rights are violated.”

The branch’s monthly meeting last week offered a glimpse of business under De Sosa’s stewardship. A dozen people sat cramped in the office at the Pacoima Community Center for more than an hour.

The Rev. Leon Garrett gave the “Toys for Tots” report. De Sosa, Garrett said, “used his powers of persuasion, and the toys were manifested” for needy families in time for Christmas.

De Sosa reported the results of the recent statewide election, and announced the NAACP annual meeting in New York, which he will attend. He also invited members to a benefit Saturday night at his home during the airing of the annual NAACP Image Awards, a program honoring positive portrayals of blacks in the television, motion picture and music industries.

De Sosa began his involvement in the black movement by joining the Urban League in 1955 at the urging of his civic-minded relatives in Harlem, where he lived briefly after leaving his native Panama.

He joined the Air Force shortly thereafter. After leaving the service in 1964, he said last week, he and his wife, Juanita, began working with black organizations, as well as on a variety of broader issues. The De Sosas chose Pacoima for their home because Juanita had a sister in the Valley and friends in the area. He went to work as an equipment engineer for Pacific Bell in Pasadena.

Involved in Education

The couple turned their attention to educational issues in the 1970s, when their children were in school. When his daughter attended Pacoima Junior High School, he and his wife spearheaded a successful fight to muffle the roar from the nearby Golden State Freeway and, later, to air-condition the school so windows could be closed against noise and fumes.

In March, 1976, the Los Angeles Assn. of Secondary School Administrators recognized the couple “for dedicated and outstanding service to education.”

Since the late 1970s, the Pacoima community has seen an exodus of blacks and an influx of Latinos. Several critics of De Sosa said last week that he has failed to lead during the transition and has let the NAACP branch slip into decline.

“I don’t think you can say Jose alone is to blame for it,” said Willie Bellamy, a professor of Pan-African studies at CSUN and, like Obinna, a supporter of the United Crusade Foundation. “All in all, it’s the community he represents. The apathy is definitely there.”

But, Bellamy added, “if Jose were to be removed, there would be room for new energy, new talent, new ideas, a person with the mentality and the strength to be able to put goals into action.”

“The only time you hear about the NAACP,” added Obinna, “is when they have a dinner.”

As first president of the new statewide NAACP conference, De Sosa said, he wants to bring more young people to the organization and tighten its ties to churches. He also hopes, he says, to force corporations to repay the black community--in jobs, contracts, franchises and executive positions--for profiting from what he calls a purchasing power that, if it were a nation’s, would equal the ninth largest gross national product in the world.

When pressed last week to explain his plan for achieving those goals, he declined to elaborate. He and other NAACP officials said detailed plans must wait until the new officers are inaugurated Feb. 27 in the California African-American Museum in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park and for the new executive committee to submit its plans to the membership.

The restructuring of the California NAACP brings the state’s 105 branches together, a goal of the national NAACP office for 10 years, said William H. Penn Sr., national director of branch and field services.

BIOGRAPHY

Name: Jose De Sosa

Age: 51

Birthplace: Panama

Education: attended college; honorary doctorate in humane letters, San Fernando Valley College of Law

Occupation: equipment engineer, Pacific Bell, Pasadena

Family: married with three children

NAACP background: president, San Fernando Valley branch, 1978 to present; vice president, Southern California-area conference, 1983-1985; president, Southern California-area conference, 1985-present; president, newly formed California state conference