WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fiery summons to an
important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit
crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him
into battle for jobs and opportunity.
And though he didn't say it directly, for a second
term, too.
Obama's speech to the annual awards dinner of the
Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from
black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans --
and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the
national average at 16.7 percent.
"It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen
to some of y'all," Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened
Washington convention center.
But he said blacks need to have faith in the future
-- and understand that the fight won't be won if they don't rally to his side.
"I need your help," Obama said.
The president will need black turnout to match its
historic 2008 levels if he's to have a shot at winning a second term, and
Saturday's speech was a chance to speak directly to inner-city concerns.
He acknowledged blacks have suffered mightily
because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so
long to reverse. "So many people are still hurting. So many people are
barely hanging on," he said, then added: "And so many people in this
city are fighting us every step of the way."
But Obama said blacks know all too well from the
civil rights struggle that the fight for what is right is never easy.
"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your
marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted.
"Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going
to press on. We have work to do."
Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting
Congress to the pass jobs bill he sent to Capitol Hill two weeks ago.
Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts,
business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000
black-owned businesses and 20 million African-American workers. Republicans
have indicated they're open to some of the tax measures -- but oppose his means
of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.
But at times, Obama also sounded like he was
discussing his own embattled tenure.
"The future rewards those who press on,"
He said. "I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to
complain. I'm going to press on."
Caucus leaders remain fiercely protective of the
nation's first African-American president, but in recent weeks they've been
increasingly vocal in their discontent -- especially over black joblessness.
"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House
and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the
White House," the caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri,
recently told McClatchy Newspapers.
Like many Democratic lawmakers, caucus members were
dismayed by Obama's concessions to the GOP during the summer's talks on raising
the government's borrowing limit.
Cleaver famously called the compromise deal a
"sugar-coated Satan sandwich."
But Cleaver said his members also are keeping their
gripes in check because "nobody wants to do anything that would empower
the people who hate the president."
Still, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., caused a stir
last month by complaining that Obama's Midwest bus tour had bypassed black
districts. She told a largely black audience in Detroit that the caucus is
"supportive of the president, but we're getting tired."
Last year, Obama addressed the same dinner and
implored blacks to get out the vote in the midterm elections because
Republicans were preparing to "turn back the clock."
What followed was a Democratic rout that Obama
acknowledged as a "shellacking."
Where blacks had turned out in droves to help elect
him in 2008, there was a sharp drop-off two years later.
Some 65 percent of eligible blacks voted in 2008,
compared with a 2010 level that polls estimate at between 37 percent and 40
percent. Final census figures for 2010 are not yet available, and it's worth
noting off-year elections typically draw far fewer voters.
This year's caucus speech came as Obama began
cranking up grass-roots efforts across the Democratic spectrum.
It also fell on the eve of a trip to the West Coast
that will combine salesmanship for the jobs plan he sent to Congress this month
and re-election fundraising.
Obama was leaving Sunday morning for Seattle, where
two money receptions were planned, with two more to follow in the San Francisco
area.
On Monday, Obama is holding a town meeting at the
California headquarters of LinkedIn, the business networking website, before
going on to fundraisers in San Diego and Los Angeles and a visit Tuesday to a
Denver-area high school to highlight the school renovation component of the
jobs package.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
(AP
Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
