Suggestions to Obtain the 'Promise of America'
President Bush spoke to the National Urban League annual meeting in Pittsburgh on Monday. He promised those assembled, who included the ubiquitous Jesse Jackson, "greater opportunity and hope" for minorities. He also pledged to extend "the great American promise of America to every neighborhood in America."
May I make a suggestion? Two, actually. The first is school choice. If poor minority children were allowed to escape their failing neighborhood schools and receive a real education in a secure environment that taught morals, they would have a ticket out of poverty and be able to ride the train to success.
The second suggestion is that these civil rights groups need to stress that family matters and that family includes two married adults looking after their own children. The out of wedlock birthrate among blacks is a staggering 69 percent. For Hispanics, it is 31 percent and rising. For whites it is 25 percent.
Put the family back together and you've solved a lot of the problems that confront minorities and their children. One wishes the civil rights groups would do more to make this happen.
I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.
Originally published July 30, 2003.
