Romney to Speak at NAACP in July

By Newsroom America Staff at 20 Jun 2012

(Newsroom America) -- GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will address the NAACP, the nation's largest black civil rights group, next month, the organization said Tuesday.

Romney, who faces President Obama in the general election in November, will speak to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, set for July 7-12 in Houston, Texas.

The former Massachusetts governor was invited to speak to the convention shortly after he clinched the Republican Party's nomination in May, said NAACP spokesman Derek Turner.

The group said it hopes that Obama will also attend the event. Both he and then-GOP presidential contender John McCain addressed the group's convention in 2008.

Agence France Press reported that the Romney camp confirmed he would speak at the convention but provided no further details.

Turner said the group expects Romney will "address civil rights" during his speech, "s they are in line with our mission."

AFP reported that the organization's members are also eager to hear Romney's views on boosting the economy. The unemployment rate among blacks is 13.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is considerably higher than the national rate of 8.2 percent.

Obama is expected to win a vast majority of the black vote in November, but recent polls show his support among the ethnic group slipping in some key states such as North Carolina, where a quarter of the electorate is black and where Obama barely won in 2008.