Leaders See a Black America Sailing Off Course

HAMPTON, Feb. 10 -- Beneath an oak tree on the campus of what is now Hampton University, historians say, Virginia blacks heard a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and began to dream of a better life.

On Saturday, more than 8,000 people returned to the historically black Virginia university to chart how far they have come. They gathered for the State of the Black Union, an annual traveling town hall that is considered a barometer for black America's ills.

This year's conference, the eighth, coincides with the 400th anniversary of the nation's first permanent English settlement, Jamestown. Africans arriving in Virginia in the years after that milestone in American history faced enslavement and entrenched racism.

Today's black Americans grapple with political apathy, limited business strength and a lack of motivation, a panel of black leaders said Saturday.

"We need a big idea that unifies us all," said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the nation's first Muslim congressman. Ellison was on a panel that included Al Sharpton and former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder (D), the nation's first elected black governor.

They spoke of a black America adrift. Black males are more common in prisons than on college campuses, they said. Black children, meanwhile, are increasingly born into single-parent homes.

"A lot of us have lost the dignity that our community has shown from Jamestown to now," Sharpton said.

Others pointed to a lack of personal responsibility among blacks who, they said, are waiting for leaders to make changes.

"I didn't have to wait for people to tell me it was my time to run for governor -- it was my time," Wilder said, encouraging other blacks to take similar personal initiative. "We can't stop here."

Hampton's Convocation Center was packed with people, many waving their arms and clapping as the speakers tackled tough topics.

Some, such as Renita Seabrook, a professor at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, considered the forum an important planning session for addressing issues such as education.

"So many of our black boys have been expelled" from schools, Seabrook said. "We've got to get a handle on the reason."

Jamichael Heathington, 17, of Chattanooga, said he wants to create a youth program to dissuade teenagers from drugs and violence after he finishes college.

He came to the conference for some pointers, calling the event "a lifetime experience to gain perspective [and] to listen to some of the brightest leaders of America."