Kweisi Mfume discusses his plan to run for the US Senate on NPR
/- Originally published by National Public Radio (NPR) March 15, 2005 Copyright 2005 National Public Radio (R)
From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Ed Gordon.
Kweisi Mfume, civil rights leader and former head of the NAACP, announced on Monday that he plans to run for the United States Senate next year in Maryland. He will run for the seat currently held by Senator Paul Sarbanes, who announced he will not seek re-election in 2006. Mfume was a Democratic congressman who left in 1996 to take the reins of the NAACP. He resigned from that position last November and he joins us by phone today.
Mr. Mfume, thanks very much for joining us. Appreciate it.
Mr. KWEISI MFUME (Former Head, NAACP): Ed, thank you. I appreciate this chance.
GORDON: Talk to me about why you decided to get back into the fray.
Mr. MFUME: Well, all my life, I've believed in public service, and I guess my life is a testimony, at least the last 30 years of it, to how I have tried to do that. When I announced last year that I was leaving the NAACP, I kind of stepped out on faith, believing that I just now could have some time with my family and take it easy and do some other things, but on this past Friday, Senator Sarbanes, as you know, announced that he would not seek re-election after almost 30 years in the Senate. And, for me, it became another opportunity to offer myself up for public service and to use the next 18 months going across the state of Maryland talking to people about why I believe government is important, why I know when it's done right it can improve the lives of others and how it can mess things up when it's done wrong, and that I wanted in a very real way engage in a level of constructive debate on issues that hopefully will cause all of us to think more about our power as individuals to make a real change within government.
GORDON: African-Americans haven't always fared well in statewide elections. I'm wondering if you've been encouraged obviously by the run by Barack Obama and did that have--did you take that into consideration when looking at running?
Mr. MFUME: Actually, I did not. Maryland's a little different than Illinois. There's a 30 percent African-American population base here to start with and almost half of the Democratic registrants are. My belief was Illinois notwithstanding, that if you could not expect in any reasonable way a credible candidate who just happens to be black could win in Maryland, then you probably couldn't expect it anywhere else. And so I'm absolutely thrilled that in Illinois for the second time in a second decade voters have looked beyond race and elected someone who they thought could make a real difference in the Senate.
The overwhelming challenge is the history, and that is that in the years since 1776 and certainly after Reconstruction when people got the right to vote in this country, black people, that there've only been four or five senators to ever serve in the Senate who were black and three of the five, if five is the correct number, were Republicans. And in the last 100 years, there've only been three: Mr. Brooke, Ms. Carol Moseley Braun and now Mr. Barack Obama.
So it's a daunting task. I just believe that this is something that is going to be won on the issues. I'm reaching out to all people. I've always been a coalition builder. I'm a child of poverty like so many black, white, Latino and Asian individuals who learn the hard way why decency and hard work and respect are important. And I'm a believer, Ed. I get up every day believing that if we just put all that we have to what we believe in, we can ultimately make a difference.
GORDON: Kweisi Mfume, former head of the NAACP and now candidate for the US Senate, thanks for joining us.
Mr. MFUME: Thank you.
