NAACP Head Seeks Meeting with Bush

By Hazel Trice EdneyNNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – NAACP President and Chief Executive Officer Kweisi Mfume has written a letter to President Bush requesting a meeting to “put aside past differences” and to discuss issues important to African-Americans. President Bush declined to address the NAACP’s annual convention last summer for the fourth straight year and has been a frequent target of criticism from Julian Bond, the organization’s board chair. “I would sincerely request the opportunity to sit down with you when your schedule permits to discuss what we can do to work together to address many of the more serious social problems facing communities across America,” Mfume writes in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the NNPA News Service. “If we can find a way without rancor or recrimination to put aside past differences and look toward a future of attempting to work together, I am sure we can work toward an aggressive strategy that will reduce or eliminate many of the scourges that continue to hinder our nation.” NAACP officials say Bush has not yet replied to Mfume’s overture. The two-paged letter, dated Nov. 5, was a sharp departure from the tone of Mfume remarks in July after Bush rejected the NAACP’s invitation to address delegates. ”We’re not fools. If you’re going to court us, court us in the daytime, but not like we’re a prostitute where you run around at night or behind closed doors and want to deal with us, but not want to deal with us in the light of the day,” Mfume said at the time. ”Mr. Bush has now distinguished himself as the first president since Warren Harding (1920-1923) who has not met with the NAACP. So, we’ve got a 95-year history and a president that’s prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance, an era where dialog is required, not distance.” In the letter, Mfume stopped short of apologizing for his past remarks. “It is clear to me, and I hope you concur, that we must first agree to open a line of much needed communication,” he writes in the letter. “That, sir, is the purpose of my effort to genuinely reach out to you. I hope that you will agree with the idea of sitting down together face to face to begin…a process that bridges the chasm that for too long has divided our organization and your administration.” The topics Mfume proposed includes the concentration of Blacks and Hispanics in low-paying jobs, the high Black unemployment rate, the lack of affordable health care, sub-standard education, mistrust of law enforcement and government. Mfume said those issues, “at every level could potentially prove disastrous to the very fabric of our nation.” The Mfume letter comes after the Nov. 2 election in which Democrats not only failed to defeat Bush, but failed to gain control of either house of Congress. Though the pioneering civil rights organization is non-partisan, 90 percent of the Black vote went to John Kerry, the Democratic nominee. Mfume, a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is trying to take advantage of an opening Bush provided in his Nov. 3 victory speech. He said at the time, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution and one future that bind us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.” Mfume is trying to meet Bush midway. He wrote, “I am convinced that if we are both determined to get beyond the past and focus on the future, that your administration and the NAACP can build a foundation of trust and mutual respect over the next four years in areas where we have common interests.”