Bush and the NAACP

Bush and the NAACP

July 20, 2006

For the first time since becoming president, George Bush will address the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "With the appearance, Bush will avoid becoming the first president since Warren G. Harding to snub the predominantly black organization throughout his term." Bush will try to make the "case for unity" to a group with whom he has a tumultuous relationship, and an African-American community whose support for Bush dropped as low as two percent after last year’s Hurricane Katrina. The NAACP convention is focusing on African-American voting rights, as well as education, health care, and income disparities — areas where the President’s record is anything but strong.

• President Bush has been silent on the issue of poverty. NAACP President Bruce Gordon said earlier this year that the "one missing link in the President’s domestic program was the absence of an initiative focused on the growing poverty in America." In New Orleans, Bush promised to tackle "deep, persistent poverty" that has its "roots in a history of racial discrimination.” Since he took office, the poverty rate has risen each year since 2001 — 12.7 percent of Americans live in poverty. Among African-Americans, poverty jumped from 22.7 percent in 2001 to 24.7 percent in 2004, forcing an additional 864,000 African-Americans to join the more than eight million African-Americans already living in poverty. Thirty-three percent of black children live in poverty, compared to nine percent of non-Hispanic white children. Bush has all but ignored poverty since Katrina, as "domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor."
  
  
• President Bush has not addressed the lack of access to health care for millions of African-Americans. According to the NAACP, African-Americans make up nearly "30 percent of the 46-million Americans without health insurance," and America's health care system is still plagued by racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities. "Access to care is a big factor," former Surgeon General David Satcher has said. "African-Americans and Hispanics are much more likely to be uninsured, and underinsured, and underserved." Gordon has urged Bush to "include coverage for the poor, and the racial and ethnic minorities," but Bush's "consumer-driven health care" initiatives would do little to reduce "rising costs and rising numbers of Americans without health insurance."
  
  
• The education gap between African-Americans and whites has grown under President Bush’s administration. Approximately 78 percent of white students graduate from high school, while 56 percent of African-American students graduate. Among these high school graduates — only 40.8 percent of African-Americans, compared to 47.4 percent of whites. Less than half of African-American students will go on to graduate from college. While there has been minimal progress in closing achievement gaps, they are still severe, with gaps in education as great as two years. At this rate, the nation will miss No Child Left Behind’s goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014, as noted in a recent Harvard University Civil Rights Project study.