(NNPA)—Last week, in response to a growing chorus of progressive voices, President Obama hosted a jobs summit at the White House. The November jobs report shows that overall unemployment now stands at 10 percent while African-American joblessness tips the scales at a hefty 15.6 percent. Obviously, unemployment has now reached crisis proportions. Prior to the White House summit, I sent a letter on behalf of the National Urban League to National Economic Council director Larry Summers and Congressional leaders outlining our six-point plan to create 3 million jobs that are desperately needed, especially in communities of color.

The classical poet A.E. Housman wrote, “For nature, heartless, witless nature...” He might have said the same thing about history, which like nature is neither cruel nor kind, right or wrong; it is simply indifferent. It has, as they say, no dog in the fight.

If, however, one is looking back and telling history, it might then be said that one is right or wrong about history. One might say as much about Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who was wrong about history in his remarks accusing Republicans opposed to Democratic health care reform of using the same stalling tactics as the defenders of slavery and Jim Crow.

(NNPA)—As one of the first to defend President Obama’s selection for the Nobel Peace Prize, I also believe that his speech was much more than an adequate expression of the contradictions in which he found himself by being selected.

The first contradiction was created by the fact that Obama was selected by the Nobel Committee essentially because he presented to the world a new vision of American leadership in the global arena that rejected the failed policies of George Bush and that pointed the way to resuming collaboration with its allies for productive purposes.

George W. Bush’s term as president ended nearly a year ago but America is still feeling the effects of his presidency: an economic recession, two wars that drain both human and financial resources and a less than stellar reputation in the international community. Thanks to a recently released report, we can now count neglecting civil rights among the many injustices former President Bush and his administration inflicted upon this country.