Obama Faces First Anti-War Demonstration at NAACP Convention

Harlem, NY - On Thursday, July 16th starting at 4:30 PM on the East side of the street at 6th Avenue between 53rd and 54th Street two major Black organizations, Harlem Anti-War Coalition and the Uhuru Movement will unite with World Can’t Wait in a protest demonstration against the unjust wars and domestic policies of President Barack Obama. On July 16th the President will deliver a keynote address on Criminal Justice at the annual convention of the NAACP, the oldest Black civil rights organization in the nation celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding at the plush Hilton Hotel in mid-town Manhattan.

The demo will kick off with a 4:30 PM press conference. Nellie Hester Bailey, a spokesperson for the Harlem Anti-War Coalition (principal initiator of the March 19, 2005 anti- war demo from Harlem to Central Park that drew a crowd of 10,000) called on African American communities, particularly its most progressive voices, to abandon their on the knees apologist posturing for the Obama administration because he is the nation’s first Black President.

According to Bailey African Americans cannot ignore $12.8 trillion spent, lent or committed to bankers while Black employment, an issue President Obama refused to address directly, shot up 14.9% in May of 2009. The current cost of war in Afghanistan stands at $2 billion per month and will increase 60% before the end of 2009 while body bags continue to arrive on US shores. Obama’s silence on the bloody siege of Gaza pales in comparison to the current actions of former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and NYC City Councilman Charles Barron, both part of the Viva Palestina relief efforts prepared to enter Gaza, ironically on the 16th. Not a word from Obama when the Israeli’s government threaten to blow out of the water the relief boat carrying McKinney and others last month.! For sure, the Obama administration’s façade has cracked under the weight of the President’s flip-flop centrist and right of center politics. Having sold himself as a transformative political leader, Obama within six months of his presidency abandon virtually every major campaign promise for peace abroad, and economic and social justice on the domestic front.

Critics argue while it is natural for African Americans to assume a race pride adulation for Obama’s catapult to the Presidency it should not exact the price of turning a blind eye to the bankruptcy of US foreign and domestic policies that essentially mimics, in many instances, those of former Republican President Bush. Blacks must recapture their moral high ground by holding Obama accountable. African Americans, impacted hardest by the economic depression, have no choice but to organize militant demonstrations, rallies teach-ins and education forums. This is the only way Obama will pay attention to Black issues that he dodges so artfully! African Americans, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama, are constituents like any other groups. We, too, deserve the respect and attention of the nation's first Black President.