BUSH AND THE NAACP - ABSENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
President William Jefferson Clinton spoke to the NAACP seven of the eight
years he was in office. On the one year that he did not speak, he sent
Vice-president Al Gore to represent him. In contrast, President George W.
Bush went to the NAACP as a candidate, but declined the organization’s
invitation his first year in office and sent no representative to replace
him. He sent a brief, taped message that invoked the name of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and also mentioned his African American appointees, but he
snubbed the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization with his
refusal to attend this year’s conference in New Orleans.
Those African Americans who support George W. Bush say they don’t blame
him for bypassing this NAACP convention. After all, they note, the
organization’s voter fund used strongly worded ads to get out the vote in
2000. The image of James Byrd, the black man who was dragged from the back
of a truck by white bigots in Texas, was used in the ads, along with the
voice of his grief-stricken daughter. Mr. Bush was excoriated because, as
Governor of Texas, he failed to sign strong hate-crime legislation.
Should the NAACP’s actions, and the fact that he pulled a scant 9 percent
of the black vote keep him away from the convention? I think not. While
most African Americans don’t support Mr. Bush, he earned respect for
attending the Baltimore convention last year. And though many would not be
swayed by his presence this time around, his presence may have offered aid
and comfort to those African American Republicans who are NAACP activists.
Depending on whose polls you believe, as many as one in six of all African
Americans are Republicans. Maryland’s Republican Party chairman, Michael
Steele, is African American. Oklahoma Congressman JC Watts has been a poster
boy for the African American presence in the Republican Party, earning
leadership positions, and championing his party’s position in the media. The
President of the Oakland branch, Shannon Reeves, ran for Mayor of Oakland and
runs a successful business. What does the President tell his supporters when
he thumbs his nose at the NAACP?
This is something Mr. Bush might have been able to get away with seven or
eight years ago, when the NAACP’s influence was waning. There had been
turnover in the leadership, distasteful headlines about sexual harassment and
ideological battles, and a daunting budget deficit. Anyone who followed the
career of Congressman Kweisi Mfume (D-MD.) could have guessed that he did not
leave his Congressional post to preside over a flagging organization. Mfume
has used his considerable contacts and charisma to raise funds and raise the
profile of important issues, including discrimination in hotel industries,
the image of African Americans in the media, racial profiling, and election
reform. Mindful of demographic shifts in the African American community,
Mfume has addressed some of the concerns of the “hip-hop” generation,
specifically stating that there will be no civil rights movement without
young people’s involvement. And, casting his eye on the future, he has
bolstered the Internet presence of the NAACP, and webcast part of the
conference proceedings. In short, Mfume has transformed the NAACP from an
organization to be considered to one that must be contended with. In doing
so, he has raised the stakes for those who would take the group for granted.
One would think Mr. Bush and his advisors would understand the risks he
runs by snubbing the NAACP. My Republican colleagues love to tell “the Texas
story” of how Mr. Bush was elected governor with scant support from African
Americans and Latinos, and how he increased that support by the next
election. Surely, he didn’t earn more support by snubbing organizations
dedicated to improving the status of people of color! The more than 5000
delegates attending the NAACP’s annual conference would not likely have
embraced Mr. Bush as a body, but he may have planted enough seeds by
attending to open more minds to his mission.
Am I trying to have it both ways? My antipathy to Mr. Bush is so
pronounced that I’d have been likely to sit on my hands as he spoke,
respectful but unenthusiastic. From my perspective, it is just as well if
he stays away, because I think he is no friend to African American people,
and I think his actions to date have proven so. Still, since Mr. Bush is so
fond of invoking the history of “the party of Lincoln,” I’d like him to put
his body where his mouth is. And, from a protocol perspective, I think there
must be dialogue between the President of the United States, no matter how he
was selected, and the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.
Mr. Bush sent a signal, and not a very pleasant one, by snubbing the
NAACP. His videotaped message speaks volumes to the leaders he has
differences with, and offers little to the black Republicans in the NAACP who
have supported him.