It’s been six years since President Bush last addressed the NAACP, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. After much hemming and hawing (here and here), Bush is scheduled to show up at the NAACP's 97th annual convention on Thursday.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. This is what I wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece in 1996 (and here) when then-GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole dissed the NAACP:
In spurning an invitation to address the NAACP’s annual convention last week, Bob Dole missed an opportunity to deliver an unfiltered message to African American voters about his lifelong commitment to inclusion, fairness and equal opportunity for all Americans. As a policy advisor to the Dole campaign, I wish Republican strategists would stop running away from African-American voters.
I do not believe that Kweisi Mfume, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was trying to “set up” Mr. Dole, as the Republican Presidential candidate initially thought. Invitations to address the group are routinely sent to candidates in election years.
On the contrary, I have no doubt that Mr. Dole could have connected with the delegates of the NAACP, which was founded by, among others, W.E. B. DuBois, a Republican. Mr. Dole could have begun with a review of the pivotal role played by many Republicans in the passage of the seminal civil rights and voting rights legislation of the 1960’s.
Ten years later, House Republicans nearly scuttled renewal of the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act (here and here).
Rep. Melvin L. Watt, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the Times:
You have someone stand up one day and say, “We’re going to make a major outreach to African-American voters,” and the next day, you pull the Voting Rights Act from the floor.
As for Bush connecting with the NAACP delegates, I seriously doubt it.
