BY DAVID STOKES

The man raised in a town called Hope, Ark., who grew to become leader of the world’s most powerful nation and in “the cradle of the civil rights movement” last week to keynote the opening session of the 30th annual conference of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), voiced public support toward rights leaders pushing President Bush and Congress to renew the federal legislation outlawing discriminatory practices and procedures that guarantees African-Americans the right to vote during an address to thousands of reporters and editors, photographers and producers gathered to celebrate three decades of “Telling Our Story with Passion, Power, Pride and Purpose”.

In the main ballroom of downtown Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, former President Bill Clinton made clear his disdain and concern of possible Republican-motivated forces in Washington, D.C.— precipitated by President Bush’s claim months ago his lack of knowledge of the Act’s expiration—readying to not reauthorize the historic Voting Rights Act when specific provisions within the full law are due to expire in 2007.

“I think the right to vote (for black Americans) is in danger,” the 42nd U.S. president said. “It is wrong, and it’s unAmerican.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act as law on Aug. 6, 1965 after proponents of voting rights for blacks coordinated five months prior the infamous Selma-to- Montgomery (Ala.) March, the response and call for justice against senseless deaths of local and national advocates seeking inclusion of minorities into the electoral process.

Clinton, now 59, was a teen in 1965, preparing to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar.

“I don’t think it makes sense to apologize for lynchings while (efforts continue) to deny (blacks) the right to vote,” Clinton said, referring to Congress’ action earlier this summer that was initiated by U.S. Sen. Mary Landreau (DLa.) and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Also during the nearly one-hour address, the former president spoke about health initiatives being coordinated by his William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, based out of the relatively new Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., to tackle persistent cardiovascular disease and diabetes of American blacks, as well as assist to alleviate devastation of malnutrition and HIV/AIDS among Third World adults and children.

At home and abroad, “we’ve got a generation of children to save. If we don’t try, this generation will be the first with a life expectancy lower than that of their parents,” Clinton stated.
Although 70 percent of the world’s AIDS cases are in Africa, according to President Clinton, African-American women need to be conscious of their risk of developing the disease that ravishes one’s immune system. “Black women are growing in infection rates. We need to make a new effort here in the United States ...to prolong lives,” he implored. “AIDS is 100 percent preventable (with) organization and (affordable) medicine.”

The Clinton Foundation is among those within the human rights and medical communities working in Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Russia and Ukraine to rid HIV/AIDS, Clinton said. The foundation, with “help from generous public and private citizens and corporations,” has enlisted a majority of physicians offering assistance at no charge who commit to at least 12 months on foreign soil for the cause.

“We’ve got a chance to turn this epidemic around! It will be unconscionable if we all don’t do more (to rid HIV/AIDS in Africa and the United States),” he said in a standing-room only ballroom amid applause from listeners. “The news is good; the progress, hopeful, if we just commit to training and affordable medicine (for the poor).”

Answering several questions from the journalists, Clinton turned contrite at the session, declaring he should have—“could have”—done more to prevent future foreign unrest, such as the killings in Sudan, and other African massacre.

“My greatest regret, along with not getting close to peace for the Middle East and action to prevent today’s (U.S.) healthcare crisis, was Rwanda ...and not saving the 8,000 (murdered) lives in 100 days” in 1994. Furthermore, he believes the “fundamental” problem in Darfur is the lack of troops to protect the Sudanese people.

“More heat is needed on the Sudan government by the Untied Nations to (increase) American and other allies’ involvement,” the husband and father of one said. Still monikered by most African-Americans as this country’s “first black president,” the two-term commander-in-chief and former governor of Arkansas spoke on the significance of diversity within the media.

“Diversity in the media is so important (to offset lack of majority diverse general news coverage). Everyone of us filters the world from (personal) experiences. With a diverse media, you get better questions and better reporting when you have an equal number of (minorities) reporting news that’s (representative of the U.S.),” Clinton exclaimed. Additionally, acknowledging his 1997 apology for the “Tuskegee Experiment,” the federally sanctioned program where poor, rural black men of Alabama were used as guinea pigs until 1972 for testing of medicine to counterattack syphilis and other diseases, Clinton said an apology for slavery was not enacted during his administrations because it would “provoke a much bigger debate of reparations ...and we just didn’t know how to address that.”

And to the question that will undoubtedly persist for the 2008 election: will his wife of almost 30 years, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), vacate her seat to run for the presidency. “I really don’t know if Hillary will run for president, but next year, she definitely will ask New Yorkers to ratify her work” within the U.S. Senate.