Black Leaders Say Storm Forced Bush to Confront Issues of Race and Poverty - New York Times

Black Leaders Say Storm Forced Bush to Confront Issues of Race and Poverty - New York TimesSeptember 18, 2005
Black Leaders Say Storm Forced Bush to Confront Issues of Race and Poverty
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 - Hurricane Katrina has forced President Bush to confront the issues of race and poverty in a way that has shaken his presidency and altered his priorities, African-American leaders of both parties said this week.

One of the most striking developments, they said, was that while Mr. Bush still calls himself a "compassionate conservative" who sees the problems of blacks as largely economic, in the last three days he embraced civil rights language from the 1960's about "the legacy of inequality" and pledged billions of dollars to rebuild one of the poorest urban areas in America.

Many black leaders, who have newfound political leverage at the White House in the wake of the storm, cautiously applauded. But they said Mr. Bush's promises of help on housing, education, taxes and job training in two speeches - a prime-time address in New Orleans on Thursday night and remarks at a day of remembrance for storm victims at Washington's National Cathedral on Friday - were only the beginning.

"Katrina has posed a challenge to the White House and the country regarding the great divide, which is race and class in America," said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, the president of the National Ten Point Leadership Foundation, a coalition that represents primarily black churches. "It's a challenge and an opportunity which can be won or lost, and ultimately it is the decision of the White House as to which way it goes."

Leaders like Mr. Rivers, a Democrat and a supporter of Mr. Bush, said the White House still had serious repair work to do among blacks after the images of the desperate and dying victims of the hurricane so shocked the nation and the world. A major first step, they said, was to include blacks in the millions of dollars in contracts to rebuild New Orleans.

"President Bush needs to ensure that we do not see racial divisions reproduced in the reconstruction effort as white millionaires get richer," Mr. Rivers said.

T. D. Jakes, the black television evangelist who delivered the sermon before Mr. Bush's speech at the National Cathedral, issued a similar warning. "I do think that African-Americans are waiting to see what this administration is going to do about this crisis," Bishop Jakes said Friday. "If the appropriate actions are taken in an expeditious, competent way, I think then our community will re-evaluate our opinions of this administration."

But Mr. Bush, who specifically noted in his speech that the federal government's rebuilding effort would include loans to minority-owned businesses, has already drawn criticism for his administration's decision to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act, the law that requires employers to pay the local prevailing wage to construction workers on federally financed projects.

The White House rationale for the decision, announced Thursday, was not only to reduce the cost to taxpayers for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, estimated at as much as $200 billion, but to open up the bidding to minority-owned businesses that have not historically contracted with the federal government.

That explanation did not satisfy critics of Mr. Bush like the Rev. Jesse Jackson. "It's a hurricane for the poor and a windfall for the rich," Mr. Jackson said after the president's speech in New Orleans. Mr. Jackson likened the structure for assistance to the region, federal financial aid managed under local control in the states, to the post-Reconstruction era that allowed segregation to take hold in the South.

At the very least, black leaders said, Hurricane Katrina set back the long-term plans of Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, and Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, to bring more blacks, a longtime Democratic constituency, into the Republican fold.

Before the hurricane, their plan appeared to be working on the margins: Mr. Bush received 9 percent of the black vote in 2000 and 11 percent in 2004, an increase that Republicans attribute in part to their courting of conservative black religious leaders like Bishop Jakes and money sent to black churches and charities through a White House religion-based initiative.

Republican political strategists point out that many middle-class blacks have views on social and economic issues that are consistent with those of Republicans, even if blacks as a group have traditionally voted for Democrats.

"The fact is, there are millions of African-Americans who are conservative, who are with the Republican Party on a number of issues, and agree with us that the path to prosperity is a path based on opportunity and ownership and empowerment," Mr. Mehlman said.

Like other supporters of Mr. Bush, Mr. Mehlman said he was outraged by the charges of racism at the White House, which increased after the president's mother, Barbara Bush, said in a radio interview that many of the people she had seen while touring a Houston relocation site were faring better than before the storm hit. "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them," Mrs. Bush said.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, distanced Mr. Bush from his mother's comment by calling it a "personal observation," while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the administration's most prominent African-American, vehemently rejected any suggestion that Mr. Bush would discriminate on the basis of race.

"I find it very strange to think that people would think that the president of the United States would sit deciding who ought to be helped on the basis of color, most especially this president," Ms. Rice said in an interview at The New York Times on Monday. "What evidence is there that this is the case? Why would you say such a thing?"

Some African Americans say that, remarkably, the hurricane has had the effect of pushing Mr. Bush to propose such sweeping Great Society-type programs - the president called on Thursday for an Urban Homesteading Act to provide free land for low-income storm victims - that conservative members of his own party are in an uproar about the expense. Until now, Mr. Bush's chief poverty program was the No Child Left Behind Act, an education initiative that is meant to largely benefit disadvantaged minority students.

"We've all known that there are these big pockets of isolated deprivation and disadvantage in the country," said John DiIulio, the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "Everybody seems to have taken their crack at it, but certain aspects of the poverty problem are stubborn. The reality is, having everybody wake up to the problem is a good thing. I know it's fashionable in Washington to see differences, but I've always felt there's a lot more goodwill and a lot more possibility for statesmanship. This crisis I think is going to bring that out."

Whatever happens, both blacks and whites said, the hurricane has defined Mr. Bush's second term, for better or worse.

"There are usually two ways that presidents do important things," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian. "One is that they see an urgent need, and they bring it before the public and address it. Other times it's an incident that changes the country, and changes the presidency."