Bond Rips Bush in Address to
NAACP Annual Convention

COREY WILLIAMS / AP 8jul2007

[Text of Chairman Julian Bond's Address to 98th NAACP Convention]

DETROIT (AP) — NAACP National Board Chair Julian Bond said Sunday that the civil rights organization is needed now more than ever because the Bush Administration has done little to support blacks.

From the administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina to the war in Iraq and immigration issues, Bush has seen his presidency questioned, Bond told an estimated 3,000 people during a public meeting in Detroit.

"The extent of the repudiation, it was evident late last month when the immigration reform bill, the centerpiece of the administration's domestic legislative hopes, died in the Senate," Bond said during a nearly 47-minute speech. "On the procedural vote that determined the bill's fate, only 12 of the Senate's 49 Republicans stood with the President. When Bush came to shove, his own party members shoved back."

Bond's speech was the opening address of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's 98th Annual Convention, which ends Thursday.

Bond said 37 million Americans now live in poverty, an increase of more than five million during the Bush Administration.

"And the gap has grown between the haves and the have-nots," he said. "Almost a quarter of black Americans nationwide live below the poverty line as compared with only 8.6 percent of whites."

Bond called present day inequality and racial disparities cumulative and the result of racial advantages compounded over time.

"Many Americans maintain — from corporate and government sponsored pulpits, newspaper op-ed pages and television and radio talk shows — that racial discrimination has become an ancient artifact," he said. "At the NAACP, we know none of this is true, and that's why we are dedicated to an aggressive campaign of social justice, fighting racial discrimination. We've done this in the past and will continue to do it in the future."

For example, he said the Supreme Court, which includes two justices nominated by Bush, upheld cases in which two school systems could not voluntarily use race in assigning students to schools.

"The Bush Court removed black children from the law's protection," Bond said.

A message seeking comment was left Sunday night with the White House press office.

Bond said the possibility that New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, will never be rebuilt is comparable to a "lynching."

"It can be said that Katrina, like lynching, not only destroyed the work of generations in a single day, but is resulting in a deliberate effort to dispossess black landholders."

The mostly black 9th Ward was one of the city's most heavily damaged areas. Bond said that nearly 60 percent of its residents owned their homes compared to 47 percent of all of New Orleans.

"Katrina served to underscore how the war in Iraq has weakened, rather than strengthened, our defenses, including our levees," Bond said. "The problem isn't that we can't prosecute a war in the Persian Gulf and protect our citizens on the Gulf Coast at home. The problem is that we cannot do either one."

Detroit resident Akindele Akinyemi, 32, of Detroit, said before the speech that he was curious about the direction the NAACP is taking during the next year.

"I want to find out what strategies they would use to bring younger members on board, and what issues are relevant to young adults," he said.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick also believes it's time for younger leadership who can appeal to 18- to 35-year-old voters, especially Latino and African Americans crucial to the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.

"You gotta have somebody lead these organizations (who are) in their 40s," the 37-year-old Kilpatrick said after delivering short remarks to help open Sunday's public meeting.

"I don't believe we can continue to put people over 50 as leaders of civil rights organizations and expect to galvanize the power beyond measure."

Bond said in his speech that the NAACP is going through internal changes that include the search for a new CEO and downsizing in which more than 70 employees lost their jobs.

The organization also is in the early stages of a $100 million fundraising drive.

Bond said the NAACP must strengthen its branches and state conferences and build membership.

"We must expand our outreach to and collaboration with our coalition partners," he added. "The time has long passed when we were the only soldiers in the freedom fight. We cannot and should not go it alone."

He pointed to NAACP successes, including asking the Georgia state legislature to join Virginia in apologizing for slavery, and working to fight predatory payday lending in that state.

The Connecticut NAACP also asked that two judges accused of bullying minority defendants be removed from the bench in that state.

source: 7jul2007