Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barak Obama, D-Ill., speaks at the The Apollo Theater in the Harlem section of New York, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007.
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK—Invoking a racially charged controversy, Democrat Barack Obama told a Harlem fundraiser Thursday that he deplored the fact that hanging nooses and "Jena Six" cases are still found in America and that if elected president he could be counted on to enforce civil rights laws.
Obama's reference to the Jena Six incident, in which six black teenagers were arrested for beating a white teen after white students allegedly hung nooses at their Jena, La., high school, came at a fundraiser at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem.
The Illinois senator, who is running to be the first black president, touched on several themes of racial justice before the largely black audience. He said he was tired of seeing young black men "languishing" on city streets and that he dreaded the thought of living through another administration that appeared to care little for the concerns of minority citizens.
"I don't want to wake up in four years and find out we still have more black men in prison than in college," he said to cheers.
Hundreds of supporters paid $50 apiece to attend the fundraiser, which marked Obama's first visit to Harlem since launching his presidential bid. He was introduced by comedian Chris Rock, who cracked up the audience with the evening's only direct reference to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's chief rival for the Democratic nomination.
He told the audience they'd be "real embarrassed" if Obama won and they had been backing Clinton instead. "You'd say, 'I had that white lady! What was I thinking?'"
Cornel West, a longtime black history professor at universities including Harvard and Princeton, also appeared onstage to welcome Obama. He called Obama "an eloquent brother, a good brother, a decent brother," and appeared to address concerns voiced by some black leaders that Obama was a relative newcomer to the civil rights movement.
"Barack Obama comes at an incredibly powerful moment in the year 2007, and we don't expect him to be Marcus Garvey ... or Martin Luther King," West said of the two famed civil rights icons.
Before the fundraiser Obama dined with Al Sharpton, a national civil rights leader and Harlem denizen who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.
The two men ate fried chicken and cornbread at Sylvia's, a popular Harlem restaurant. But Sharpton said the visit shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of Obama's candidacy.
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