Unions also want Obama elected

[Omaha Steve]

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080717/NEWS0108/807170386

By Tony Lang • [e-mail] • July 17, 2008

The NAACP convention belonged to Republican presidential candidate John McCain Wednesday morning.

The afternoon belonged to a labor-NAACP coalition with a very different agenda.

AFL-CIO executive vice president Arlene Holt Baker called on the grand ballroom crowd at the Duke Energy Convention Center to cement their labor-NAACP alliance closer than ever this year in the cause of electing the nation's first African-American president.

The response to her keynote speech at the labor luncheon, the convention's largest, left no doubt that she was speaking to Barack Obama country.

She spoke in front of a banner proclaiming, "Two movements, one goal."

• Photos: McCain speaks to NAACP
• Video: Highlights of McCain's speech to NAACP
• Read text of McCain's speech to NAACP

Baker gave a quick history of how labor and the civil rights community kept their eyes on the prize throughout the tumultuous '60s, even during those dark assassination days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.

"We have the opportunity to avenge them," she said. "This year, we have the chance to elect the first African-American president. We have the opportunity to reclaim the United States and everything it stands for."

After her remarks, the former grass-roots union organizer led a march of local union members and NAACP delegates from the convention center to Cincinnati City Hall to rally for a federal Employee Free Choice Act.

FULL story at link.