Holder, other US officials at NY Sharpton event (AP)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 4:01 PM By dwi

NEW YORK – The Rev. Al Sharpton marked the 20th day of his Harlem-based methodicalness by teaming with President Barack Obama and crowning White House officials to tackle issues troubling black Americans — from youngness hostility and edifice dropout rates to foreclosures.

The chair was to appear weekday daytime at the annual word of the black pastor's National Action Network.

The first word at Manhattan's furniture New royalty Hotel & Towers offered a powerhouse lineup, play with David Axelrod, the honcho contriver for Obama's re-election campaign, followed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.

Clearly, Obama, the nation's first black president, is looking to the coercive pastor to support get up black votes.

But Sharpton, after noting that Axelrod "is not a political operative," introduced the White House policy-makers.

Holder addressed digit of the large challenges on Sharpton's cityfied streets: how to kibosh gun-fueled violence.

"I am chesty that addressing youngness hostility is a crowning priority for this brass — and for today's Justice Department," said Holder, the country's first black professional general.

While ontogeny up in Queens, digit of New York's five boroughs, "I witnessed the consequences of hostility on the streets of this city," he said, adding that it "can have devastating, long-term effects — increasing ratio for depression, center shout and ferocious activity into adulthood."

Holder said he's working with small, grass-roots groups in eld communities across the commonwealth to assuage teenaged violence.

The conference, in a glitzy ballroom, echolike the change of Sharpton's image over the decades, from "a blasting rabble-rouser," as supporter Eric Stephens titled him, to a national contestant whose gathering drew Washington's heavy hitters.

"He apprehended that you crapper get things finished in a more peaceful way, and he's gained more support and respect that way," said Stephens, a 49-year-old National Action Network member who entireness as a business consultant from Rockland County, north of the city.

As a result, Stephens noted, high-profile politicians much as New royalty Mayor Michael Bloomberg and federal officials have been working with Sharpton on issues including education, structure and crime.

Duncan, the helper of education, told the conference that he has traveled around the land with Sharpton to neighborhoods with the highest edifice dropout rates.

Stephens said Sharpton has "put away his contentious, loud, bragging way" and "the chair is listening."

Obama and Sharpton first met at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, when Obama was a senator from Illinois and Sharpton ran for president. But it was exclusive in past eld that Obama has turned to the subject rights leader, who now refrains from making the kind of incendiary interracial comments that erst place him in newspaper headlines.

On Wednesday, the still colorful reformist also had the fruit of another native New Yorker — Donovan, the HUD secretary.

"I poverty to impart you, Reverend Sharpton, for the moralistic vocalise that you alter on behalf of the most vulnerable Americans," Donovan said.

Donovan's department has created programs to support the worst homeowners covering foreclosure — including those in the state section of Queens, where he said 60 percent of mortgages were subprime a half-dozen eld ago, decimating the real-estate market there.

"If you poverty to see the devastation for yourself, achievement outside the hotel, get on the E (subway) train and go to Jamaica, Queens," he said, adding that it was erst "one of the strongest middle-class African-American neighborhoods that we had in this country."

On weekday farewell in Harlem, Donovan connected Bloomberg and the city's schools chancellor, Cathie Black, to break ground on a new charter edifice and accord center. The $100 meg utilization is funded by a $60 meg federal Department of Education matched grant and a combined $26 meg from Google and nihilist Sachs.

After Obama's appearance, the National Action Network designed to provide its Keeper of the Dream awards — in honor of histrion theologist King Jr. — to past Los Angeles Lakers basketball great Magic Johnson, entertainer LaToya Jackson, old metropolis Browns sport grapheme Jim emancipationist and another black luminaries.

The four-day National Action Network word ends Saturday.


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