President Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech Thursday to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, paying tribute to the organization's history and challenging its members to confront continued racial disparities.
"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still
felt in America," the president said in honoring the nation's largest
civil rights organization on the occasion of its 100th convention.
Speaking to an audience of several thousand at the Hilton
New York, Mr. Obama credited the bravery and determination of civil rights
leaders with paving the way for a black person to win the White House.
"Because of them I stand here tonight, on the shoulders of giants,"
Obama said. "And I'm here to say thank you to those pioneers and
thank you to the NAACP."
President Obama used the speech not only to pay tribute to
his forerunners but to highlight modern challenges faced by the black community.
He spoke of societal ills that often disproportionately afflict black Americans,
including being more likely to suffer from many diseases and having a higher
proportion of children end up in jail.
"These are some of the barriers of our time," Me. Obama
said. "They're very different from the barriers faced by earlier
generations. They're very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and
dogs were being turned on young marchers," he continued. "But what's
required to overcome today's barriers is the same as what was needed then. The
same commitment. The same sense of urgency."
In response to such challenges, President Obama urged
parents to take a more active role in their children's lives. "I want them
aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers
and rappers," Obama said. "I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court
justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States."
Mr. Obama also cited discrimination that continues to plague
other communities and urged his audience to extend the fight for equal rights
to all - to women, Latinos, Muslims, and gays and lesbians.
The speech was suffused with personal history; in crediting
his single, white mother with keeping him focused on education, President Obama
remarked, "When I drive through Harlem or I drive through the South Side
of Chicago and I see young men on the corners, I say, there but for the grace
of God go I."
But it was also a policy speech, with Mr. Obama pitching
tenets of his ambitious domestic policy agenda, including reform in finance,
health care and energy.
The NAACP's president, Benjamin T. Jealous, who at 36 is the
youngest person to lead the organization, said afterward that the address "was
the most forthright speech on the racial disparities still plaguing our nation"
that Mr. Obama has given since the inauguration.
---- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
