NEW YORK – The opening address at the National Urban League’s 2012 Conference will be delivered by President Barack Obama.
The President will address the Conference on Wednesday, July 25, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
“We’re thrilled and proud to welcome the President to our Annual Conference for the third time,” said Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League. “It has become a tradition for Presidents and major-party candidates to address the conference, not only to share their agenda for the nation, but also to hear ours.”
National Urban League Annual Conference occupies a singular echelon in America’s cultural and political discourse, Morial said. The nation’s largest civil rights and social justice conference attracts thousands of the nation’s most influential community leaders, together with top policy-makers, academicians, business leaders and artists for three days of dynamic dialogue, intellectual exchange and community service.
The Conference has been the only event of its kind to feature both major-party presidential nominees during each of the last several elections and attracted a majority of primary contenders in 2008, including Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Mike Huckabee. In 2004, both George H. W. Bush and John Kerry addressed the Conference. Additionally, leading elected officials and cabinet secretaries have chosen to break major announcements at the conference. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, for example, unveiled the administration’s Equity Agenda during the 2010 Conference.
This year’s conference theme, “Occupy the Vote: Employment and Education Empower the Nation,” represents an unprecedented mobilization to influence public policy through grassroots political action. Workshops, panel discussions and policy sessions are built around the Urban League Movement’s agenda to address the twin crises of unemployment and educational inequity.
