NEW YORK -- President Barack Obama told the nation's oldest civil rights group that prejudice and discrimination aren't the steepest barriers for the black community and urged his audience Thursday night to focus on education and good parenting to improve the lives of the next generation.
"Government programs alone won't get our children to the Promised Land," Obama said in a speech to the 100th convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in New York. "We need a new mind-set, a new set of attitudes."
"One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation," he said. The black community has "come to expect so little of ourselves."
Milestones acknowledged
The president acknowledged the two milestones of the evening: his election as the first black U.S. president and the centennial of the NAACP.
His journey to become the 44th president was possible "because ordinary people made the civil rights movement their own," he said.
The nation's first black president bluntly warned, though, that racial barriers persist.
"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America," the president said in honoring the organization's 100th convention.
Rousing up a friendly crowd, Obama made his first speech so directly linked with race since he took office; the White House says he worked on it for about two weeks. Implicit in his appearance is the fact that he is seeking the backing of the powerful NAACP and its members for his ambitious domestic agenda.
The president said that in the current down economy, blacks are suffering high unemployment and are afflicted with more diseases but are less likely to have health insurance.
He said that the African-American child is about five times as likely as a white child to be sent to jail.
Education essential
Obama touted education as essential to improving the lives of all children. He said the state of schools is an American problem, not an African-American one.
"You know what I'm talking about," Obama said. "There's a reason the story of the civil rights movement was written in our schools. There's a reason Thurgood Marshall took up the cause of Linda Brown. There's a reason the Little Rock Nine defied a governor and a mob. It's because there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child's God-given potential.
"We have to say to our children, 'Yes, if you're African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher,'" Obama said, returning to his tough-love message familiar from his two-year presidential campaign. " 'Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not.'
"But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school," he said. "No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands and don't you forget that."Obama also pressed for NAACP members to encourage their young people to find new role models beyond sports or music.
"I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers," Obama said. "I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States."
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