By Michael A. Fletcher and Hamil R. Harris
Friday, March 19, 2010; 12:28 PM
Should President Obama have a black agenda?
Popular talk show host and activist Tavis Smiley is planning to host a forum Saturday at the 6,000-seat Emil and Patricia A. Jones Convocation Center on the Chicago State University campus to explore the provocative question.
Smiley has invited a panel of black academics and leaders, including the heads of the NAACP and the National Urban League, to Obama's home town to discuss whether the nation's first African American president is doing enough to address the community's concerns.
Smiley also invited White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, but neither she nor any Obama representatives plan to attend, a spokesman said.
Several years ago, Smiley compiled a nationally best-selling book, "The Covenant With Black America," which laid out strategies for addressing black-white disparities, in health care, education, wealth creation and criminal justice.
Smiley also has caused ripples in African American leadership circles with his outspoken insistence that Obama -- like any other president -- be held accountable by black voters.
Many of the disparities cited in Smiley's book have only grown amid the recession, and increasingly some black leaders are grumbling that Obama should be doing more about them.
Last week in an article in The Washington Post, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus complained that Obama is out of touch with them and difficult to reach on the issues that matter most to their constituents.
For his part, Obama has resisted suggestions that he craft policies directly aimed at the staggering economic and social challenges facing many black communities. Black unemployment stands at 15.8 percent, far above the national average of 9.7 percent, and African Americans are more likely than most Americans to lack access to health care and good schools. They also have been disproportionately affected by the home foreclosure crisis, and the rampant loss of wealth that has come with it.
Obama has said that African Americans would benefit from his broader agenda, which he says is aimed at relieving the burdens saddling all working Americans. His administration's efforts to increase federal financial aid for college, increase funding for impoverished school districts, and to expand access to health care would disproportionately benefit working-class people, many of whom are black, he has said.
"I'm the president of the entire United States," he told American Urban Radio Networks in December. "What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That, in turn, is going to help lift up the African American community."
While Smiley is gathering black leaders in Chicago, NAACP chief executive Ben Jealous said as he arrived to a Washington dinner of National Newspaper Publisher Association that now is the time to rally behind the president
"We have to come together right now to push through the big changes that this country needs: jobs, health care and a justice system that works for all of us." Jealous said. "Black people are at the center of that agenda. It really is about all people in this country who are hurting."
Ron Walters, a political scientist who is scheduled to appear on a panel at Smiley's conference, said that Obama's position is true only to a point. If the black community is suffering disproportionately, he said, then it is due targeted help.
"In general, when a president signs a bill that puts billions of dollars out there, the assumption is that will help African Americans," he said. "The point is maybe. Our history is that we always had to fight to get general resources to flow into the black community."
Walters said that Obama is being "defensive" about the question of race, because we "live in a racially sensitive country. If he said there were going to be programs aimed at African Americans, there would be such a hullabaloo."
Although Obama has drawn fire from some African American leaders for his reluctance to embrace a black agenda, White House aides point out that the president has been quietly forging bonds with one key constituency group: the black church.
The White House has hosted weekly conference calls and regular briefings with church leaders, including many who lead African American congregations.
"The administration is proud to engage clergy from across the country, and will continue to work with faith-based and other community leaders to address challenges facing our communities," said Joshua DuBois, executive director at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
In the past year DuBois and Paul Monteiro in the White House Office of Public Engagement have held weekly conference calls with religious leaders; in December, the president listened in as several pastors offered prayers.
The Rev. Otis Moss Jr., pastor emeritus of Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Cleveland, has been a supporter of Obama. His son is pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, which the Obama family attended until the storm caused by the fiery sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"I have great faith and respect and admiration for the president's commitment and leadership, but we have to help him," Moss said. "Not since Lincoln and Roosevelt has a president inherited such tremendous challenges nationally and globally."
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