Excellent article addressing the anniversary of the Million Man March:

Ten years later, more than 65 percent of our children are still born out of wedlock.

Ten years later, we are still five times more likely to die of homicide.

Ten years later, still fewer than half of us own our homes.

Ten years later, we still marry less, go to jail more and die sooner.

Ten years later, the promises we made that crisp Monday in October lie fallow and unredeemed.

On Sunday, it will be a decade since African-American men descended on the Mall in Washington. …

Yet 10 years later, here we are, still damned by numbers. Because change is not something you talk into existence. Change takes action.

Some of us did go back to our communities and work to change them. But too many of us, it seems, just went back.

And for a powerful parable concerning this topic, I highly recommend William Raspberry’s The Elephants’ Tale.

Black conservatives are launching a “loosely knit movement” designed to draw more African Americans to the Republican party.

Today more than a hundred black clergy gathered at a Los Angeles megachurch to unveil a “Black Contract with America on Moral Values” [see below].

Jackson said his group would work with the Democratic Party if it agreed to endorse its moral “contract,” which calls for a condemnation of gay marriage – as well as stronger families, counseling in jails and job creation. The name plays off the conservative agenda which GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich used as a political litmus test in the mid-1990s.

Later this month another group that has ties to Gingrich will announce a similar compact, the “Mayflower Compact for Black America”. This group already has plans for organizing in key states ahead of the 2006 and 2008 elections.

Near the end of the month the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation [of which I am a proud supporter] will play cohost to black conservatives “designed to counter dominance of the “America-hating black liberal leadership” and to focus African American voters on moral issues.”

Most interesting is the reaction from blacks in power:

The meetings have a common goal: to foster a political realignment that, if successful, would challenge the Democrats’ decades-long lock on the loyalty of black voters.

The effort has proved so successful already that Democrats who make up the Congressional Black Caucus are quietly expressing alarm — and planning countermeasures.

“I am frightened by what is happening,” said Rep. Major R. Owens, an 11-term Democratic congressman from New York who has been conferring with colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus. “Our party is in grave danger. This Republican movement is going to expand exponentially unless we do something.”

No mention of the Democrats abandoning black children as they side with teachers who don’t teach in increasingly failing schools. No hint that perhaps blacks should be concerned with moral issues as their culture of strong family values is being eroded by the nanny state. No thought for doing what is best for these Americans. No — the reaction is to fear for their jobs.

Contents of the Black Contract With America on Moral Values unveiled today:
• Marriage: Focus on prohibiting same-sex marriage.

• Wealth creation: Private Social Security investment accounts and encouraging homeownership.
• Education: School vouchers, charter schools and boosting black enrollment in higher education.
• Prison reform: Including a “Second Chance Act,” reentry programs and laws restoring the rights of felons.
• Africa: Intervention in Sudan and penalties against corporations that explore for oil in the region.
• Healthcare overhaul: Including programs to cover the poor.

This could be fun:

The nation’s largest civil rights group is refusing to turn over documents for an Internal Revenue Service investigation into allegedly improper political activity, claiming the probe is politically motivated.

Yeah, I think I’ll refuse to pull over the next time a cop puts his lights on because my bumper stickers were no doubt the reason for his actions. Wonder how that’ll play with the judge?

Dems are frightened by the new black voter:

African-Americans have become more politically astute and realize the value and power of their votes. They are demanding more accountability to ensure that their votes really do count. Black clergy are insisting that candidates address moral issues and visit their churches throughout the year instead of merely two weeks before Election Day.

Voters are researching candidates and relying less on sound bites and endorsements by popular political kingpins. Those leaders certainly have their followers, and their endorsements have value. But it is a fallacy to assume that one or two leaders can shake all the apples from the voting tree into any one bucket.

Rather than embracing change, the NAACP chairman stays with the same old poisonous rhetoric:

[NAACP Chairman Julian Bond] noted that the Republicans won all the states of the old Confederacy in last month’s presidential election. Bond said Republicans have reached out to “Talibanistic” elements whose idea of civil rights is being able to fly the Confederate flag beside the U.S. flag.

So the NAACP Chairman believes that Bush won the presidency because Southerners are racists comparable to the Islamic fundamentalists with whom we are currently at war. Bond packs more stereotypical hate in one speech than most people can express in a lifetime.

After reading this I have come to think that perhaps I had underestimated Kweisi Mfume:

The final tear came after the election. Mfume suggested sending a letter to President Bush, mapping out ways that they could work together to help the community. Bond rejected the idea. Mfume sent the letter anyway. To Bond, this was an unforgivable. A few weeks later, Bond had Mfume voted out. The message was clear: There is no room within the NAACP for intellectual diversity. Just loyal servitude to the Democratic Party.

This is a crime. This is a shame. This is the sad state of the nation’s most storied civil rights organization.