Thank you. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, good evening. Giving honor to God and obedience to Him. It is, indeed, a pleasure and a special honor to be in this historic home, Ebenezer Baptist Church.

I want to thank the Reverend Raphael Warnock. I want to thank the Pastor Emeritus, Reverend Roberts. I want to thank them for giving us an opportunity to gather in this hallowed hall, this sacred hall to begin this year's Urban League annual conference.

I also want to begin by thanking Robert Taylor, our senior vice chairman; the members of the board of trustees; and thank Robert for his commitment, for his steadfast work, and for being a teacher in helping to guide our work as we move to a strategy that will carry us into the 21st century. Please give Robert, along with our members of our board of trustees, a warm round of applause. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I promise that I'm not going to talk too long tonight. We are going to be out of here before the sun goes down. But you know when you come to the house of the Lord, it's only appropriate to say all the thank yous.

And I want to thank Mayor Franklin, who has certainly had to depart to carry out a very busy schedule for friendship and for leadership. Mayor Franklin stands on the shoulders of the late, great Maynard Jackson; stands on the shoulders of Andrew Young and Bill Campbell; stands on the shoulders of great urban executives in this city.

But Mayor Franklin has forged her own reputation. Mayor Franklin has demonstrated that a strong and diminutive woman, a dime amongst pennies, can lead a great American city in the 21st century, Shirley Franklin.

Our affiliate leader here in Atlanta, Dr. Clinton Dye, a quarter century of commitment to the Urban League. A man whose commitment and passion, along with his board chair, Brian Lacy, they have worked with Mayor Franklin and others to ensure that this is going to be the very best Urban League conference ever. I want to thank Dr. Dye one more time, and ask that you join me in giving him a special thanks for his work.

Mike Eskew chairs and is the CEO of UPS. I love the color black, and I love the color white, and brown, and yellow. But tonight I especially like brown. And I want to thank Mike Eskew and UPS; Jim Winestock, our trustee, and certainly Cal Gardner, our former trustee for the great partnership that we've enjoyed with UPS over the years.

They have connected with many affiliates. They've been a consistent support of the work that we do. And, Mike, thank you so much, once again, stepping up when we've asked you. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Coca-Cola is the real thing. And E. Neville Isdell, it's inspiring to hear him talk about his early life in South Africa before a free South Africa. And I certainly just want to thank him for sharing that with us, and for his passion, and for his commitment, and for the way this great city has had an effect on him. Once again Coca-Cola has been with us a long time. Thank you, Neville. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

My Urban League family, the affiliate CEOs, the board members, staff, guild, YPs. Especially the young people up there. One more time for the Nuliters. And as the affiliate CEOs know, this work is hard. This work is tough. And the affiliate leadership is in transition as many, many great veteran CEOs who carried the water, carried the burden, carried the message, and carried the mission. Many are retiring and moving on. And then we have an entire new group that is coming in to energize and carry the baton into the 21st century.

I want to thank those who have been with us, those who are retiring, those who may be thinking about retiring. And I want to welcome all the new affiliate CEOs and ask all of the affiliate CEOs to stand so we can recognize their very important leadership. Affiliate CEOs, thank you.

As is always the case, we have many VIPs here and too numerous to mention. But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the presence of a great St. Louisan, the Olympic gold medalist Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee, who is with us today. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you. Next year we're coming to St. Louis. Get ready Jim Buford, Andy Taylor, and Jackie, we are going to be in St. Louis.

I also would like to give honor to our friend and colleague, the president of the National Conference of Black Mayors, Mayor Robert Bowser of East Orange, New Jersey who has traveled to be with us. Thank you, very much, Mayor Bowser.

And earlier Representative Cynthia McKinney was here. And I want to especially acknowledge her work on the Voting Rights Act, and her advocacy on behalf of victims and survivors of Katrina who came to this great city of Atlanta to find a temporary, and in some cases a permanent place to live. So we want to thank Representative McKinney. And certainly all of you know that we will honor John Lewis and other members of Congress who will be here in the next several days to come.

Tomorrow I will have the pleasure and the honor to represent all of you at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House when the 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act will be signed by the President. Importantly, I'll have an opportunity to lead a delegation that will include Herman Lassar, Lavern Chapman, along with Maudine Cooper and Stephanie Jones of our Policy Institute to be there for this historic signing.

And I want to thank all of you because this was a great victory, but a tough victory. For three years we've asked Urban League CEOs to travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with members of Congress to stress the importance of the extension of the Voting Rights Act. And sometimes when you do that you wonder if you're making progress. You wonder if the message is falling on deaf ears. I'm here to say that your work, your advocacy indeed made a difference.

Because of your work and your advocacy, the Voting Rights Act extension got 390 votes in the United States House of Representatives with only 33 dissentions, and 98 to zero in the United States Senate. A significant accomplishment for Civil Rights in America today.

Now, let me share this: This victory was a victory which melded together what I hope is going to be a new coalition for Civil Rights. It included Republicans and Democrats. It included the leadership of this nation's labor organizations, as well as the leadership of this nation's business organizations.

And they stood up at the last minute to a small but determined group. The polite way to describe them is intervenors. The street way to describe them is just plain old-fashioned obstructionists. And they stood up at the last minute and sought to hijack the Voting Rights Act with 40-year old worn out arguments. And that's a story.

But the story that I think is more important to tell tonight is the way this broad coalition came together, the business round table, and the AF of L-CIO, the NAACP and the Urban League; conservative liberals, moderate Democrats and Republicans.

When you get 98 votes in the U.S. Senate, you've got some kind of coalition for Civil Rights in America. And my hope is that coalition will stay together to do some other important work that I'll talk about a little bit tonight.

So here we are in Atlanta. The big ATL. Hotlanta. We are in this great and wonderful city that is special to the Urban League. It's Atlanta where the late, great Whitney Young honed his skills as one of this nation's leading social workers prior to becoming president of the National Urban League.

It is Atlanta which is the home town of Vernon Jordan. It is Atlanta where the school of social work where Whitney Young once was its leader now bears his name. It is Atlanta, the city too busy to hate. And also the city that is a pivot place in the history of America, in the history of Civil Rights. Dr. King, Ralph David Abernathy, Andrew Young, and John Lewis, just to name a few, called this city their home.

And this is a city which is pioneered in black electoral advancement. Maynard Jackson, Andy Young, Shirley Franklin, Julian Bond, and I can name so many other household names who are pioneers from the very soil of this great city.

Atlanta is also home to great historically black colleges and universities; Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown, Morehouse, and Spelman. Atlanta is also home to a great history of black business achievement and involvement. And now on this 97th anniversary of this great organization, we are at this hallowed, revered, and sacred place, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pulpit of Dr. King.

Now, I could spend tonight highlighting and outlining the accomplishments of the Urban League movement. We could talk about the legislative policy conference. We could talk about the urban youth empowerment program that now will provide funding to 27 Urban League affiliates.

We could talk about the five economic empowerment centers, one here in Atlanta, that are trying to help African-American businesses become mainstream businesses, grow their revenue, grow their employees, and build wealth. Or we could talk about the nine Reading Information Centers.

We could talk long and hard and proudly about our accomplishments. But tonight, I think, is a night to discuss and to define the future of Civil Rights in America today, because Civil Rights, the idea of an expansion of the American dream, an expansion of the American table is as relevant in 2006 as it was 40 years ago.

Now, when we think about Civil Rights, my thoughts and my heart can't help but turn to the pain that so many experienced in my home town last summer. The pain of Katrina. For some it was pictures on a television screen. For me it was family members and neighbors stranded on roofs in makeshift floating devices, turned over refrigerators.

It was the heroes, the young men in public housing that carried children out on their shoulders. It was the business leaders that stepped up, while government waffled, and sent money and food and water down there. The images of my hometown, New Orleans, made poverty real in America again. It made it real.

So we could spotlight statistics about disparity. We could talk about the wealth gap, the job gap, the wage gap, the health gap. We could talk in erudite and intellectual terms about income and health and equality in America. But Katrina made it real. It showed people not in a full-length movie, not in a documentary, not in a cheap sound byte, but the pictures of people suffering.

But I want to tell you, those pictures were not just pictures in my home town. Those people represent people in St. Louis and Dallas. They represent people in Buffalo, in Austin. They represent people right here in Atlanta. They represent people in Gary, and Sacramento, and in Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.

There are people in poverty all over America today. And while they are mostly people of color, let me say, they are not exclusively people of color. One of every 10 white Americans lives in poverty in America. One of four black Americans lives in poverty.

So almost a year later, I do say that I am proud. I am proud of the way in which the Urban League affiliates stepped up to serve 30,000 people, helped them connect, put a roof over their head, give them some food, just give them a place where they can find safe harbor in a time of difficulty when they were displaced. All of you stepped up, and you did it because it was in the mission. You didn't do it because you got threatened.

You didn't do it because someone called and asked you. You did it because it was in the mission. And let it be said that business leaders like Neville Isdell, Mike Eskew, and Andy Taylor and others, they stepped up and they wrote checks and they put the resources of their companies behind trying to find some sanity at a time of insanity.

So what is the point? What is the point? The point is that as we stand here today, this issue of economic inequality and poverty must be the new and defining issue of Civil Rights in the 21st century. It must be.

The fight to sit at a lunch counter was an important fight. The fight to be able to afford what was served at the lunch counter is an even more important fight today. And the fight to own the lunch counter is the 21st century.

So we must focus anew on income and equality and poverty. We must focus anew on trying to close the wealth gap. I believe that for this generation, this generation of Americans, black, white, brown, yellow, it is indeed our calling. It is indeed what we have been anointed and asked to do.

Dr. King's dream and vision still inspires our work. But it is painful to see the Red Canyon dividing people in this nation. Indeed since 2000, the relative wages, the relative income of middle and lower income Americans has simply not gotten better. And what you begin to see is, it begins to affect spending and business. It begins to affect quality of life.

People say have I arrived. I have my job. I have my car, but I look up and I still can't pay the bills. Indeed in this city, in this region, the foreclosure rate is rising where people who have invested and bought their American dream home are having difficulty affording to pay the mortgage combined with all the other household bills. This is the face of America in 2006.

But I speak not as one who believes or thinks that the glass is half empty. I believe and firmly state that the glass is half full. Because since Dr. King stood in this pulpit and eloquently preached messages that found their way throughout the world, we have made important progress. We have cut the poverty rate in half. We have opened new doors in so many places in American life, and that has been done by the generation before us.

But now we come to where we are today. In this new empowerment movement, we must focus on economic empowerment, economic justice, economic bridge building, and economic opportunity. And we must build a new America, new cities, a new frontier, and a new society.

Dr. King from this very pulpit said that problems do not solve themselves, problems do not just work themselves out. It takes action. It takes a plan. It takes leadership to make things happen. In his last sermon at Ebenezer, Dr. King referenced the gospel of St. Mark at 10 verses 35 to 44. And I'll paraphrase it in saying whoever wants to become great must be a servant.

And in that text and in that sermon, he talked about the drum major instinct. The capacity, the desire, the DNA that we all have to be first, to be a leader, to be at the front, not behind the parade. But he also said that that instinct could be very destructive. It could lead to a search for status. It could lead to a selfish notion that what I need is for me. It could lead to the idea that I am better than someone else. But he talked about harnessing the drum major instinct. Harnessing it to serve and to do something good.

Tonight is the night when the National Urban League and the Urban League movement must be the drum majors of the 21st century when it comes to economic empowerment. We must be the new leaders to define this new movement, because it is indeed consistent with our roots.

But in the 21st century it means more than programs, although it means programs that reach people. It means public policy. It means building new partnerships. It means that we must become stronger or visible community leaders. It means that we must be, if you will, drum majors in the suites and on the streets. It means we must be drum majors with our friends in the business community, and with our friends in the Civil Rights community. It means we must be leaders, leaders who are destined to serve.

So this drum major instinct as who will lead the band, who will lead the band for better jobs, for better housing, for more business development. Who will lead the band to close the wealth gap in 21st century America. I say the Urban League movement can and must lead the band and be the drum major of the 21st century.

There is a lot that certainly can be done. And I want to share some action steps with you. But Congress could do something immediately to send a message that it is serious about closing the gap, and that is to simply raise the minimum wage. Why?

Because it has been 10 years almost since the minimum wage was raised. Let me talk about this just real fast, because what the minimum wage means in reality is important. But what it means symbolically is important.

We have to send a message to people that work is valued. If we want them to value work, work must compensate them in a fashion where they can afford to, at least, pay some bills. So I think that is a small but symbolic step.

And we are going to work to take that voting rights coalition and put it together to get the minimum wage raised. It is something we must do. So here are some steps that we are going to take. First, I'm doing to ask you to join me in a new campaign, a campaign for economic empowerment to end poverty and build wealth in America. And this campaign will embody an economic empowerment tour where we are going to visit cities from coast-to-coast.

And we are going to bring our message of jobs and housing, business development and financial literacy to communities across the nation; hold Town Hall meetings, have workshops, highlight the very important work the Urban League affiliates are doing because we want the community to know about the work you are doing.

But we want them to know we are only scratching the surface in terms of the people who need our help and need our services. And we also want to bring a message to our community that closing the economic gap and the economic divide is not simply about what will someone else do for me. And it also embodies some self-determination. What will I what will we, what will individual families and communities do for themselves?

We cannot fall into the trap of believing that the destiny to closing the economic gap is all about, solely about what someone else will do for us. We must be about economic self-reliance. So we are going to launch this campaign. And we're going to launch this tour. And we're going to go to cities from coast-to-coast with this very important message.

Second, very shortly in a few short months we are going to learn the names of those who want to succeed President Bush to become the 44th President of the United States. This year Governor Dean and Mr. Mehlman will be with us here in Atlanta.

We've given them each an opportunity to come and talk to us. Howard Dean, the head of the DNC, and Ken Mehlman, the head of the RNC. And I've invited them here because we want to begin a process, a process of engagement and discussion with these candidates who will be with these parties and their candidates who will seek the nomination.

And we will extend, as I shared with them privately, an invitation for all of the people who are running for President of the United States to be with us next year in St. Louis, to come to St. Louis.

Now, why are we doing this? By asking this early, we will not tolerate any excuses of scheduling conflicts. So let the world go forward. We are going to write them all a letter. If their name appeared in Google one time associated or affiliated with a presidential campaign, and then they are going to get a letter, and it's going to say, you are hereby cordially invited to join us in St. Louis next year on an appointed time and date, and we're going to e-mail the letter, fax the letter, mail the letter, send the letter by UPS, Fed-Ex, and a courier with a Coke.

But more importantly and as importantly, we are going to work to change the conversation with those that are going to lead the country in this fashion. Our Policy Institute is now in the process of developing the opportunity compact agenda. I talked about it last year in the keynote. It was the subject matter of the state of black America. We want to develop concrete public policy proposals that operationalize with specifics our thoughts about how to close the economic divide in America.

And why are we going to do this? Because we want to deliver these ideas to the candidates who want to be president. We want to change the conversation. For too long we sit back and people come, and we ask them, what are you going to do for our community? What is your idea about urban America? Where do you stand on the important issues facing our community?

We're going to change the conversation, and we're going to say here is where we stand. Here are what our ideas are, and we'd like you to come to St. Louis next year and respond.

We want to change the conversation, because as we mature as players in democracy, as we mature as a movement in seeking to impact public policy, we've got to return to our roots.

I was reading the proceedings of the 1975 conference here in Atlanta. Vernon Jordan was president. They met here in Atlanta. And at that conference the Urban League released policy proposals on a wide variety of important issues on transportation, on workforce development, on housing and community development, and assembled the very best and brightest minds in America to help them pull those ideas together.

This is what we must do in this period. This is what we must do in the 21st century to become serious in our impact on public policy. And we're going to give these proposals to Republicans and Democrats. And we are going to seek for these proposals not to simply be a rehash of the same old stuff. But we are going to seek new thoughts, and new ideas, and new ways of closing the economic divide.

So we will want you to join me. I may need to call on you all to make some phone calls to all of these people who are running and say, you'd better be there or be square.

Finally -- or the third action step I want to talk to you about is something I've been thinking about for quite a long time. Recently in New York there was a man charged with a hate crime. He committed an act of violence while uttering an ugly racial epithet. His defense was that this racial epithet, the "N" word, had now become so mainstream, so common in its usage that it was no longer a derogatory term.

Now, I want to ask you to join me in a personal and collective pledge. We've got to remove the "N" word from our private conversations. It is ugly and it is despicable. And if we don't want it to appear in music, then the people who make music can't hear it in their homes. They can't hear it in neighborhoods.

We've got to remove this word from our vocabulary because it is not acceptable. And we can't expect others not to use it if we pretend somehow it is a term of endearment. It isn't. So I want to ask you to join me, certainly, in doing that.

As I conclude, I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to be on a three-year journey. The last three years as your leader, I've had the opportunity to travel some 275,000 miles. I've been from coast-to-coast. I've visited as many as 80 plus affiliate cities. I've been all across this great nation on your behalf.

I was down in Gary with Ms. Gentry. We were there with 7,000 beautiful young people setting a new Guinness Book of World Records for reading aloud. I was in Memphis, and in Memphis we were at the Shelby County Correctional Facility, a town meeting with 300 inmates/residents of that facility. They were men and they were women. They were black and they were white, but they were mostly black men, listening to their personal testimony about the demons of drugs and alcohol, about the burden they carried because they only went to 8th grade in school; to the challenges that the warden faced.

And I was out in Sacramento at a Town Hall meeting on the state of black America with the residents there. And I've been to Philadelphia, and St. Louis, and Baltimore; St. Louis and Los Angeles Head Start centers to see the work we're doing to touch the very, very young. And I was in Champaign where young people were learning computer skills and had their own radio and television program because of some work that that affiliate does in partnership with us.

And I've been to the White House with Bruce Gordon, and Ted Shaw, and the great Dorothy Height for a frank conversation with the President in December about voting rights, Katrina, economic opportunity, support for historically black colleges and universities. And I've been to Capitol Hill numerous times talking to Frist, and Reed, and Pelosi, and Hastert, and anybody who would let us in the door to talk about the very important issues that we face.

And I've been in the corporate suites of America from New York to Los Angeles to Chicago, all across this very nation to talk to business leaders about the necessity of a continuing commitment to diversity, diversity, diversity in their employment, in their contracting, and in their philanthropy.

And I was down at the Houston Astrodome, down with Sylvia Brooks, and Bill Clinton, Bush 43, Senator Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey embracing the victims and survivors of Katrina in the immediate aftermath when they were living on cots in their borrowed clothing separated from their families and knowing not what the next day would hold.

I've had a chance on your behalf. And every time I go someplace I carry you with me. You're right there in my pocket and in my heart, because I recognize and realize that I do not act alone, but I act on your behalf.

I act in conjunction with you, in concert with you, as a partner with you looking at all of the challenges and opportunities of this vast and great nation. From sea to shining sea, from New York to Los Angeles, this Urban League movement is making a very important difference. But from New York to Los Angeles there are great successes. There are so many great successes.

But I'm here today to say that there are so many great problems and great challenges in front of us, not the least of which is this growing and unacceptable economic divide.

I have to ask you on tonight to accept my challenge to be the drum majors, to accept this challenge wherever you sit, whether you sit in the community leading affiliate, whether you sit in a good job in corporate America, whether you're on a campus, or no matter where you are, I want to challenge you to be a drum major.

I want to challenge you to accept what Dr. King said, the need to understand and to lead and to be first requires the capacity and the commitment to serve. To serve. The drum major instinct.

We open tonight what I hope will be a new generation, a new chapter, a new era that will come to this Ebenezer Baptist Church to stand on this holy and hallow ground to open a new chapter in American history, to open a new commitment, to say that the war on poverty was never really fought. But now is the time to fight it.

Now is the time to close the economic divide. Now, is the time to ensure that affordable housing is not a notion or emotion, but a reality for everyone. Now is the time to ensure that every child in America gets a good education in a safe classroom.

Now is the time. Now is the time for all of us to understand that the free enterprise system to be full participants requires that you not only be consumers, but producers; that you not only be renters, but that you're owners; that you are stockholders and bondholders, and people with estate plans; that you're people planning and preparing to leave something for the next generation.

It is time for a new era. It is time for a new chapter in Civil Rights. Will you accept this challenge? Will you accept this challenge? Will you accept this challenge to be the drum majors the 21st century? Will you accept Dr. King's challenge to recognize that anybody can serve?

You don't need your Ph.D. You don't need your J.D. You don't need your stock portfolio. You don't need your safe and secure job. All you need is a good heart and a good attitude. Will you be the drum major of the 21st century?

Thank you very much.