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Tavis: Tonight, a look at the challenges facing residents of the Big Easy in advance of next month's mayoral election with Bruce Gordon, President and CEO of the NAACP. Earlier this week, Mr. Gordon and others met with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to address a number of concerns about the upcoming elections. Mr. Gordon joins us tonight from Jacksonville, Florida. Mr. President, nice to have you on the program again.

Bruce Gordon: Tavis, it's great to be here. Thank you for taking the time to discuss what you and I both know is such an important subject.

Tavis: I'm delighted to have you on. As I mentioned a moment ago, one does not go meet the Attorney General around issues like this if one doesn't have issues with what's going on. So what were the issues that you talked to the AG about?

Gordon: Well, Tavis, as you so appropriately pointed out in the Covenant with Black America, voting is probably the most basic of American rights and we're very concerned. The NAACP and many others are very concerned about the upcoming New Orleans elections.

We're concerned about the date of April 22 which is sooner than I think I would choose, but of equal importance, if not more so, I am concerned about the mechanisms that are required to make sure that Black voter participation is at the level that it should be. That means that the absentee ballot process has to work well and, as you well know, mailing those applications out will be difficult when many of the evacuees have moved multiple times since leaving the city.

In addition to that, since many New Orleans residents are centered in major hubs like Atlanta and Houston, many believe that there should be satellite voting locations set up so that these people can easily participate in the voting process. At the moment, I'm not satisfied that the absentee ballot process will work as well as it's intended and there's only an agreement at this point in time to have satellites set up within the state of Louisiana, therefore leaving those in Houston and Atlanta out in the cold.

Tavis: What were the objections to those concerns that you raised, those suggestions more specifically, that you raised?

Gordon: I think that the Attorney General has not really expressed a willingness to take a position. I think that he views the state as having the right to set the appropriate voting guidelines for their citizens.

I guess the real point here is that, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 coming up for reauthorization and, as you well know, the pre-clearance provision in Section Five, it is time in my opinion for the Attorney General to weigh in, to use the power and accountability provided by that law to evaluate the voting proposal of Louisiana and to assure ultimately that voter participation is at an all-time high.

We've got evacuees who have faced too many inconveniences, too many discomforts in leaving their homes, losing their jobs, to now insult them by not affording them the opportunity to participate in the voting process. It's something that I want the Attorney General to focus on and take a position and he's not yet indicated his willingness to do so.

Tavis: Let me ask you whether or not you are concerned about the fact that the process isn't going to work as well or be as smooth as it should be, whether or not that is the concern or whether what I'm hearing you suggest is that we're looking at the potential disenfranchisement of potential voters, many of them African American. That's a civil rights issue.

Gordon: It's absolutely a civil rights issue. Frankly, I connect them. It seems to me that, now more than ever, New Orleans citizens need to vote on their future. They need to participate in the future planning of their city. The Voting Rights Act has the responsibility, particularly in states that have previously abused voting rights privileges, to review the process. In my mind, we've got to do everything we can. Let me be clear. This is not a political issue. I don't have a horse in this race. This is not about who wins the election. It's about who gets to participate in the election.

Tavis: Let me ask you, though, Mr. Gordon, because there are a lot of people who see it differently. With all due respect to your work, there are a lot of folk who think that it is in fact a political issue and there are a lot of folk who believe that African Americans, because they are disbursed right now - I cast no aspersion on Mitchell Landrieu. I know Mitch. I like Mitch. He's a nice guy. But you got a white guy whose sister happens to be a United States Senator running against a Black guy, Mayor Ray Nagin, who obviously has his issues and has said some crazy stuff in the past.

So again, to your point, it's not about black or white necessarily. It's not about politics as you see it, but there are a lot of folk who see this as a race issue, that given that most of the residents who are back in that city now, many of them certainly are white voters and not African American. While it might not be on its surface a race issue, it ultimately becomes a race issue if black people don't have a chance to elect a black mayor, whomever that might be, and there are twenty-some people running for this office.

Gordon: You and I are basically on the same page. When I say it's not a political issue, I want to be very clear that the NAACP as a nonpartisan organization is not trying to determine or influence who wins or who loses. What we're trying to make sure is that our people get a chance to vote. It's very hard, by the way, to dismiss the racial implications of Katrina, what happened before, what happened immediately after and what is happening even today.

At the end of the day, what we're going to do as an organization is two things. One, we're going to stay in touch with the Attorney General and be very aggressive in terms of insisting upon what it is we think he needs to do, but we're also going to work both sides of the street here. What I mean by that is, if the date doesn't change, if there's no intervention from the Department of Justice, we're going to arrange to have buses and transport people from Houston, from Atlanta, into New Orleans so they can vote.

We're going to arrange for people to identify themselves by dialing into an 866-OUR-VOTE telephone so they can reach out to us, tell us where they are so we can intervene in the process and make sure that absentee ballots find their way to these people who want to vote by the absentee ballot process. We're going to activate our units across the country to help identify yet other evacuees who may be outside of those major centers like Houston and Atlanta so we know where they are, what they want to do and get them included in the voting process.

Tavis: Since this date has already been pushed one time, are you hopeful or is it your sense that there is a possibility, even though the AG hasn't said anything at this point, that that date might be pushed again?

Gordon: Here's the way that I want to come with that. The AG has suggested to me that the date that is set is the date that will survive. What I want to do, as opposed to debating it at this point, is put all the necessary mechanisms in place and be able to quantify whether or not we see high percentages of displaced New Orleans voters getting into the process. If we can provide evidence that says we don't think they're going to find their way into the voting process either in the polls, in satellite locations or through the absentee ballot process, we will go back to the Attorney General one more time and encourage him to exercise his voting rights authority and move that date.

Tavis: Let me ask you finally what you think the relevance is - the importance of this issue is. You started this conversation by saying that voting certainly is one of the bedrock principles of our democracy. But for those watching this conversation right now who, again to your point, don't have a horse in this race per se and aren't at all connected to the politics of New Orleans or the state of Louisiana, but since we're all Americans, I assume that we all value the right to vote, what's the larger message here about the vote in America as we approach the expiration of the Voting Rights Act in 2007?

Gordon: Well, you know, I look at the fact that we are waging a very costly, both in dollars and in human capital, war in Iraq to offer the opportunity to vote and provide a level of democracy in that country. We've got to show the same degree of commitment to Americans today. That to me is essential that we do it. So I think you and I see that the value of the vote is something that Americans have to see, identify with and have a genuine interest that all Americans, particularly those affected by Katrina, this time around get their chance.

And keep one thing in mind. When you're electing a mayor and you're electing a city council, what that means is that these are the people who will begin to develop the new plans, set zoning requirements and determine what the Ninth Ward and other parts of New Orleans are going to look like not tomorrow, but ten years from now. People who lived there prior to Katrina should have some say over who gets to make those decisions.

Tavis: I'm going to ask my director to put up a Website on the screen while I say goodbye to Bruce Gordon and leave it up here for the next few seconds (www.sec.state.la.US/elections). This is not something I do often, but for those who are watching around the country who have been disbursed out of Louisiana, before you start calling PBS trying to figure out what the Website is and where to get the information on your screen right now.

You see the Web address where you can go to get your absentee ballot or, for that matter, any other information you need about participating in the process. Your vote is your voice and we want to make sure that, at the end of this conversation, you know where to go to get information you need however it is that you intend to vote in this upcoming election. Bruce Gordon, President and CEO of the NAACP, thanks for joining us. Nice to have you on the program, as always.

Gordon: Tavis, thank you for having me. If I may, I should tell you that we're not in this by ourselves. The People for the American Way, the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, this is a broad-based effort. 1-866-OUR-VOTE. That's how you call us to get in the game.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program. All the best to you.

Gordon: Thank you very much. My pleasure.

Tavis: Up next on this program, Sammy Davis, Jr.'s wife, widow, Altovise Davis. Stay with us.