John Edwards for President-Edwards speaks at annual NAACP event

Edwards speaks at annual NAACP event

Katrina A. Jackson
Associated Press
May 21, 2006

COLUMBIA, S.C. - America remains divided between the haves and have-nots, former vice presidential candidate John Edwards said during the state NAACP's annual Freedom Fund Celebration event Saturday.

"There are people who wake up every day in America living in poverty," Edwards said "In the richest, most affluent, most prosperous nation on the face of the planet, this is not complicated it's wrong."??In recent months, Edwards has traveled the country as a vocal anti-poverty advocate while contemplating a possible 2008 presidential bid.??He wouldn't say Saturday whether he had made a decision about a possible candidacy, but he has said that he is "seriously thinking about it."??Edwards said one thing that would keep him from running would be the health of his wife, Elizabeth, who was diagnosed with breast cancer the day after the 2004 general election.

Born in South Carolina, Edwards served in the U.S. Senate from North Carolina before he was picked as John Kerry's running mate in 2004.??Though they make up about 30 percent of the state's population, blacks make up a disproportionate number of the poor in South Carolina, said Lonnie Randolph, state president of the NAACP.??"African-Americans are disproportionately in a low rank of everything in South Carolina simply because of the adjective _ they are African-American," Randolph said.??Saturday's event was held at the Bible Way Church of Atlas Road.

Proceeds from the Freedom Fund Campaign will help sustain efforts in areas the civil rights organization thinks are important like health, economic advocacy, criminal justice, education and civic engagement, organizers said.

The group raised about $300,000 last year and hoped to raise $500,000 this year, said Dwight James, executive director of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The group has not yet calculated funds raised this year through the fundraiser, he said Saturday.? Some of the money will be used to address the "unequal facilities and inequitable resources" in public education, Randolph said.

"Education plays a role in poverty. Rarely will you see an educated people impoverished," Randolph said.

Edwards said government programs, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, should be expanded for poor working people. He also supports $1,000 annual homeownership down payment grants and $500 housing vouchers for low-income working families, which he said could be used to help poor working people move into better communities.

While he has spent most of his time speaking on anti-poverty issues, Edwards has still weighed in on politics.

More recently, Edwards expressed concerns over reports that the National Security Agency has been collecting customer phone records around the country as a means of fighting terrorism. He also has been critical of the recent vote to extend the Bush Administration's tax cuts _ cuts he says overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.

Edwards said his interest in helping the poor was rooted in his humble upbringing and his work with a group called Urban Ministries before his election to the U.S. Senate.

The former trial lawyer now leads the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina law school and has been campaigning around the country for fellow Democrats.

In elections, Democrats can and should try to win in the South, Edwards said.??"We ought to be competing with everything we've got in the South," Edwards said. "We ought to be fighting to win Southern states in presidential elections. And we ought to be doing the work to build our party in the South."??U.S. Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat up for re-election this year, attended the event.

He says Democrats have a chance to win.

"I've got a tough campaign," Spratt said. "But we've been working hard and so far so good. Now, that doesn't mean it's in the bag by any means. What it means is that my opponent has to make himself known. He has money. The Republican National party will be pumping money into it. So, I've got a tough race on my hands, but I'm in to win it."