Obama stresses responsibility in NAACP speech
"If we're serious about reclaiming that dream, we have to do more in our own lives," he told the group's convention.
CINCINNATI - Democrat Barack Obama received a prideful welcome last night at the annual NAACP convention, but in a stirring speech to the nation's oldest civil-rights group, he nonetheless insisted that blacks must show greater responsibility for improving their lives.
The man who could become the first black president urged Washington to provide more education and economic assistance. He called on corporate America to exercise greater social responsibility. But he received his strongest applause as he urged blacks to demand more of themselves.
"If we're serious about reclaiming that dream, we have to do more in our own lives," he told a crowd estimated at 3,000. He spoke of "providing the guidance our children need, turning off the TV set and putting away the video games; attending those parent-teacher conferences, helping our children with their homework, setting a good example. That's what everybody's got to do."
He added: "I know some say I've been too tough on folks talking about responsibility. NAACP, I'm here to report, I'm not going to stop talking about it. Because as much as I'm out there to fight to make sure that government's doing its job and the marketplace is doing its job . . . none of it will make a difference - at least not enough of a difference - if we also don't at the same time seize more responsibility in our own lives."
Amid building cheers, Obama declared: "When we are taking care of our own stuff, then a lot of other folks are going to be interested in joining up and working with us and taking care of America's stuff. We can lead by example, as we did in the civil-rights movement."
Obama, who grew up without his father, has spoken and written at length about issues of parental responsibility and fathers participating in their children's lives. Yet a similar speech he gave on Father's Day prompted an awkward rebuke from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil-rights activist and a former Democratic presidential contender.
Jackson apologized last week after being caught saying on an open microphone that he wanted to castrate Obama for speaking down to blacks.
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is scheduled to address the NAACP tomorrow.
In other news from the campaign trail yesterday:
Mideast visit.
A Palestinian official said Obama would visit the West Bank next week as part of a swing through the Middle East, giving an important diplomatic boost to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at a sensitive time in peace talks.
The planned meeting with Obama comes months after McCain passed on meeting with the Palestinians during a brief visit to Israel.
Obama is scheduled to meet Abbas during his July 23 stop in Ramallah, said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. Obama is also expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials. The Obama campaign declined to comment.
Afghanistan.
Obama said in a New York Times op-ed column yesterday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades - about 7,000 troops - to Afghanistan, where U.S. forces face rising violence. Today, he plans a speech on his vision for Iraq and Afghanistan.
McCain, who intends to speak Thursday about his plan for Afghanistan, said yesterday: "I think we need to do whatever is necessary, and that could entail more troops."
NAFTA.
McCain, in one of his strongest endorsements of free trade, called himself "an unapologetic supporter of NAFTA," an agreement that many Americans feel has cost them jobs. In San Diego, he told the National Council of La Raza, a major Hispanic group: "I reject the false virtues of economic isolationism."
Obama has been much cooler to free-trade agreements and wants to revisit some aspects of NAFTA.
Obama Campaign Names Pa. Chief
Craig Schirmer
, a California native who played a role
in three of Barack Obama's
most important primary victories, will direct Obama's general-election campaign efforts in Pennsylvania,
the campaign announced yesterday.
Schirmer will be
the Democrat's state director.
He oversaw the Obama campaign operation in
South Carolina, and later
was director in Wisconsin and North Carolina.
He managed
Erskine Bowles' unsuccessful 2002 Senate campaign in North Carolina, and is a veteran of the Gore presidential campaign in 2000 and Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996.
- Thomas Fitzgerald
