Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made separate appearances at The National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention last week, and each portrayed themselves as the leader who would best serve the social and economic needs of the African-American community.
In what some described as an historic event featuring the first viable female and black 2008 contenders for the White House, Senators Clinton (D-NY) and Obama (D-IL) both talked about race, criminal justice and the disparity among blacks in housing and education.
The candidates spoke before a packed ballroom at Bally’s Hotel and Casino during the NABJ’s 32nd annual convention and both alluded to Chauncey Bailey, the 57-year-old black journalist who was shot to death two weeks ago in Oakland, California.
Obama said the challenge for America’s black journalists “is to make sure that we are lifting up stories that are focused on the specificity of struggles that are happening in African-American communities.”
Later, Obama talked seriously about often being asked if he’s black enough and why some blacks are skeptical of his candidacy.
“Am I black enough? This is a puzzling question,” Obama told an audience inside a packed ballroom. “We should ask why that is? … It’s not about my track record.”
“We’re locked into the notion that somehow if you appeal to white folks, something is wrong,” he said. “Is he keeping it real because he went to Harvard?”
He said another factor is fear that somehow he will let black folks down by losing the presidential election.
“I say let’s try,” he said.
A day earlier, Clinton told the assembled journalists that she will reform the criminal justice and prison systems if elected president. She said an estimated 1.4 million young black men are out of school, out of work and disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system.
“We’ve been wringing our hands and listening to this exact same conversation with these exact same statistics for years,” Clinton said. “Well, I reject the conversation that paints with a broad brush 1.4 million young men as a threat, as a headache or as a lost cause.”
Both Clinton and Obama have been crisscrossing the country, appealing to all voters, particularly black voters in southern states like South Carolina, where there is a large African-American voting bloc.
Two weeks ago, Clinton hosted an afternoon meeting with 200 African-American men to discuss social and economic issues that impact black communities across the country. She received endorsements from music icon Quincy Jones and BET founder Robert Johnson.
Last week in Las Vegas, five of Obama’s African-American senior advisors met with a dozen black journalists, in part to quell the notion that Obama does not have any blacks in his inner circle.
