On 100th Anniversary, NAACP Looks to Future of Civil Rights

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• JIM LEHRER:

  Now, the NAACP turns 100. Last night, President Obama spoke at a convention celebrating the birthday of the nation's oldest civil rights organization.

• BARACK OBAMA, U.S., President:

  I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that, overall, there probably has never been less discrimination in America than there is today. I think we can say that.

  But make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America…

  (APPLAUSE)

  … by African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender; by Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country; by Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God; by our gay brothers and sisters still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Yesterday, Gwen Ifill talked with the new, young leader of the NAACP and two activists about the past, present and future of the civil rights group.

• GWEN IFILL:

  We are joined by Benjamin Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP; Hazel Dukes, the New York NAACP Conference president; and Professor Eddie Glaude of Princeton, who's the director of the Center for African-American Studies there.

  Thank you all for joining us.

• EDDIE GLAUDE, Princeton University:

  Thank you.

• HAZEL DUKES, President, NAACP New York Conference:

  Thank you.

  BENJAMIN JEALOUS, president, NAACP: Thank you.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Mr. Jealous, the NAACP was founded at a time 100 years ago when people were saying that Negroes would not be equal to whites for 50 to 100 more years. So how far have we come now?

• BENJAMIN JEALOUS:

  In some ways, it turns out that that was a very optimistic statement, right? I mean, on the one hand, sort of on the high notes, we've hit them.

  You know, we have the first black president of the U.S., and yet it's still harder for a black man with no criminal record to find a job than a white man who has one. Black children in the school district in Baltimore, 75 percent drop out before they graduate.

  We have very serious problems, very big disparities. We are free, but that was just the beginning. You know, the next step is to actually catch up and to ensure that the dream in this country is real for all families. And we just aren't there yet.