And they'll know we are Christians by our love

Poor Alphonso Jackson cannot catch a break. Earlier this week, I mentioned how Jackson was hissed and booed at Call to Renewal's Pentecost 2004 event. Jackson was booed again on Thursday at the National Baptist Convention USA for saying that the Republican Party is committed to helping African Americans. Janet McConnaughey of the Associated Press narrates:

The audience, which had given him a polite patter of applause when he was introduced, sat quietly for most of the speech, including Jackson's statement that Bush has made home ownership for all Americans a central theme of his administration.

Jackson also told how his father, stricken by cancer, rejected a social worker's statement that he was entitled to welfare and food stamps as well as Social Security and Social Security supplemental payments.

"My father said, 'I'm only entitled to two of those, because I've already paid for them,'" Jackson recounted.

Then he said, "The Republican Party is committed to helping African Americans," and the boos began.

"He's said enough already," one man muttered.

Apparently, though, this is par for the course in Jackson's speaking engagements:

"I am pleasantly pleased that I didn't get more," he said. "I have spoken in churches where I got called names."

"The so-called black leadership -- Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bonds -- creates and continues black victimization," he said.

And, he said, the National Baptist Convention USA is made up mostly of older people who are set in their ways.


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