Bush plans talk about race

WASHINGTON -- The dedication ceremony tomorrow for the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kan., will give President Bush an opportunity to talk in specific terms about race relations.

"You'll hear him say America has come a long way in 50 years, but we have a lot of work to do," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. "We need to work together and lift each other up."

Bush frequently touts programs aimed at helping minorities. He says his No Child Left Behind education plan will "end the soft bigotry of low expectations." He believes that some of his other programs -- his housing downpayment assistance program, his faith-based initiative to get federal funding to religious charity groups, and his tax cuts for small businesses -- resonate in minority communities.

But Bush, whose campaign in 2000 seemed to offer the promise of a stronger relationship between wary minorities and the nation's top Republican, has angered minorities by refusing to fully fund his education plan, opposing affirmative action, and nominating federal judges whose records on civil rights have been criticized.

Members of minority groups largely voted against Bush in 2000, and they remain deeply skeptical of his motives. That skepticism was on display in February, when Bush was booed by a large, mostly black crowd as he laid a wreath at the grave of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta. The president had traveled to Atlanta that day after giving a speech at a New Orleans church where King once preached.

Bill Clinton was often hailed when he made similar gestures during his presidency.

Many minority leaders have painted Bush with the same brush as previous Republican presidents, whose policies they believe stymied minority advancement.

"There have been a lot of self-inflicted wounds by the Republican Party when it comes to race," said Abigail Thernstrom, a conservative member of the US Civil Rights Commission. "No matter what we say, there's going to be distrust."

Despite the strong opposition he faced from minority voters in 2000, Bush appointed the most diverse Cabinet in history, tapping blacks for such crucial positions as secretary of state, national security adviser, and education secretary and naming Hispanics to posts such asWhite House counsel and HUD secretary.

Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator who is black, said he does not need to hear Bush give speeches on race. "When I think about what the president has done on race, I think about Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Alphonso Jackson, Rod Paige," Williams said, citing the president's black appointees. "That speaks volumes about where he is on race. It's substance, not just symbolism." Jackson is the administration's new secretary of housing and urban development; he replaced Mel Martinez, who resigned in December.

But as all presidents know, symbolism matters, and Bush's critics point to his administration's decision to oppose affirmative action admission programs at the University of Michigan -- announced by the president in 2003 five days before Martin Luther King Day -- as an illustration of his indifference and insensitivity. Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, got enthusiastic applause on the King holiday from a largely black audience in Richmond when he criticized the Bush administration's decision.

David Bositis -- a senior analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that focuses on issues of concern to minorities -- said opposing the Michigan admissions programs was a sop to conservatives in the party doled out by the administration at the expense of black interests.

"They didn't have to do anything," Bositis said. "But Bush's natural instinct is to appeal to his white Southern base."

Not even having his Justice Department reopen the case of the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, a black boy who was killed in Mississippi by white men for whistling at a white woman, will earn Bush credit among blacks, Bositis said.

"They can look moderate to swing voters," he said of the administration. "There's no cost. You think white voters in Mississippi will say, 'That darn Bush; I'm voting for Kerry?' "

Representative Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the president missed an opportunity to strike a blow for better race relations when he did not ask Congress for full funding for his education plan.

"I'd rather see the billions of dollars that he left out than some words," Cummings said, adding that the president should not limit his comments in Kansas tomorrow to a simple recitation of the progress that has been made over the past 50 years.

"He's got to acknowledge some of the problems" that persist, said Cummings, who, along with Kerry, is scheduled to attend the site opening.

Duffy said it would be wrong for anyone to assume that Bush has not worked to improve race relations. He pointed to meetings the president has had with black clergy to discuss his faith-based initiative, his speech in March honoring civil rights activist Dorothy Height and to his remarks condemning slavery last July during a trip to Goree Island, Senegal, where African slaves were herded onto ships that carried them off to bondage.

Bush's comments there touched on current problems. "My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy, and it is not over," he said. "The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation."

Duffy said racial harmony is part of what Bush is talking about when he mentions in his stump speech that Americans should love their neighbors "just like they'd like to be loved themselves."

The president believes improving race relations requires more than just government actions, Duffy said. "The government has a role to play, but we've got to change hearts. That's some of what you'll hear Monday."