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Morning News

The First 100 Days: President to Visit Predominantly Black Elementary School

Aired February 9, 2001 - 9:04 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the Bush administration is trying again to reach out to African-Americans. Today, Mr Bush visits a predominantly black elementary school to celebrate Black History Month.

Details on that now from our White House correspondent Kelly Wallace.

Kelly, good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, good morning.

That is exactly right, this will be President Bush's first event marking Black History Month, and as you mentioned, he will be traveling to an inner-city school here in the nation's capital to talk about his education reform plans and also how he believes reading is the next civil right. But of course, again, another opportunity for the president to reach out to African-Americans, who overwhelming voted for Al Gore, not George W. Bush on election day.

Now, during Mr. Bush's first week in office, he traveled to another predominantly African-American school in Washington, D.C. Today, the president will be joined by his education secretary, Rod Paige.

The president will start what's being called a reading chain, in a classroom here in the nation's capital. The students -- each student -- will read a book by or about an African-American author each week.

Again, though, the president using this visit to tout some of his proposals for education, including his plan for a $5 billion initiative to make sure that every child can read by the third grade.

But again, likely to be some fencemending to try and heal some wounds with African-Americans: Many African-Americans believe there were voting irregularities back in November and have called on the president to make election reform a priority. The president met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus just about a week ago, many of those lawmakers asking the president to put in his budget funding for new voting machines -- the president telling African-American lawmakers that he will work with them when it comes to election reform.

The president and aides hoping what happened in Texas, Daryn, happens nationwide, because when the president first ran as governor of Texas, he got just about 14 percent of the vote in Texas when is comes to African-Americans; during his second run, that number jumped to 30 percent. The president hoping that happens during his days in the Oval Office -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Kelly, a different racial issue: racial profiling. This is a topic that came up on the campaign trail, and now President Bush has law enforcement leaders asking him to think about this problem.

WALLACE: Absolutely -- what puts this in the news: the group called the International Association of Law Enforcement Officers would like to have a meeting with Bush White House at the staff level. This group has asked for a meeting to discuss a range of issues, including racial profiling, this group believing that steps need to be taken to restore the nation's faith once again in law enforcement officers. We understand no meeting scheduled. A meeting could happen, though, at some time.

Again, Daryn, the president did talk about racial profiling during the campaign, and this White House says he's committed to looking at this issue.

KAGAN: Kelly Wallace, at the White House, thank you very much.

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