New NAACP Chairwoman Begins Repairs : Leadership: From finding an executive director to wiping out debt, Myrlie Evers-Williams has a big job ahead. But she starts to tackle it on her first day.

For Myrlie Evers-Williams, getting elected as chairwoman of the NAACP was the easy part.

Now she has to heal divisions that have nearly torn the venerable civil rights organization apart, hire an executive director who can broaden its membership, drive it back onto the main roads of national political debates and--perhaps most challenging of all--erase its estimated $4-million debt.

On her first full day in her new position, she made a start at all four. “I think I can speak for each and every one here and say that we are all unified today in terms of not only seeing that the NAACP survives but also that it thrives,” Evers-Williams said Sunday during a news conference here.

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It was her first opportunity to speak about her plans after Saturday’s 30-29 vote by the board of directors of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People ousting the controversial William F. Gibson as chairman and installing her in his place. As she spoke, several board members stood by her side, nodding in affirmative solidarity.

That was not her only such gesture. The night before, when President Clinton called to congratulate her, she insisted on a conference call in which all board members--her opponents as well as her supporters--could hear and speak with the President.

“We were encouraged yesterday when President Clinton called the board members and spoke to us and said that we had a lot of work to do and that he looked forward to working with us,” she said, adding that some of the board members appreciated the gesture.

Evers-Williams quoted the board members as telling Clinton: “We need your help too, Mr. President.”

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Among her first official acts was to announce the appointment of Earl Shinhoster as acting executive director. Shinhoster had been serving as an interim administrator since Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. was fired in August.

She also announced plans to attend a series of meetings this week, sponsored by the NAACP’s Washington office, to oppose parts of the Republican “contract with America” and to organize support for Clinton’s surgeon general nominee, Henry W. Foster Jr.

To deal with the NAACP’s internal troubles, she said she will organize a group of lawyers and accountants to study its finances. In the hours immediately after her election, she said, the group received promises of more than $60,000 in donations.

But while Evers-Williams’ first public and private actions emphasized harmony, she has inherited a set of internal and external problems that will challenge not only her personal leadership but also the NAACP’s viability.

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For the moment, she is being generous, offering bouquets to her supporters and olive branches to her rivals. On Saturday, for example, Evers-Williams acknowledged her supporters, who were waving placards that read “Clean House,” by playfully asking the crowd, “Where’s my broom?”

On Sunday, she said: “I think we are well on our way to getting our house in order. I really don’t think a broom, as such, is really going to be necessary.”

Her magnanimity reflected political reality within the NAACP. Sources close to the board said Evers-Williams now commands a fragile majority of about 35 votes on the 64-member NAACP board.

Gibson, who remains a director, was conspicuously absent from the podium for Evers-Williams’ news conference and still has a strong contingent of supporters on the board, one source said.

Gibson has been charged by other board members with mishandling NAACP funds and failing to account adequately for more than $500,000 in expenses.

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Ben Andrews, who served as vice chairman before Saturday’s election, said the Evers-Williams-led board would continue to have strong personalities and contentious fights.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Andrews, who switched sides to support Evers-Williams. “Bickering is part of debate when you have two sides.”

Nevertheless, Evers-Williams has a secret weapon in her soaring support among the grass-roots activists in the group’s 2,200 branches across the country.

“The people who make up the NAACP were well-represented here yesterday, and they spoke, and the board members listened,” she said of the force that pushed out Gibson and paved her way to the chair.

Part of that stems from the residual respect within the group for her first husband, MedgarEvers, who was the NAACP’s national field director when he was slain in Mississippi in 1963. After a 30-year legal struggle, Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of the murder.

“Medgar died for the NAACP,” Evers-Williams said after her election. “I will live for the NAACP.”

Also contributing to her elevation was the NAACP membership’s desire to deal with issues other than internal fights. Evers-Williams seemed to recognize that as well.

“We realize what are the problems that are facing us today, one of the major ones being the attitudes and positions of the 104th Congress,” she said.

“We will be watching very carefully, and we will also be very vocal on issues that deal with welfare reform, that deal with the attitudes and the attempts to roll back many of the gains that we have made over the years, one in particular: affirmative action.”