The Urban Affairs Committee is charged with increasing NRA membership among minorities. No small task, judging by the preponderance of white people at the convention this weekend.
But this right here is a very diverse group of blacks, whites and Hispanics. The featured speaker is Roy Innis, chairman of the Urban Affairs Committee and the national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality.
Before his talk, Innis asks the folks in the room to introduce themselves. A black woman from Miami says her friends were surprised she would attend an NRA function, given that the street-level wisdom says the NRA is comprised of "racist, sexist, evil, old white men."
Innis takes the podium and gives a brief outline of the NRA's beginnings. The group dates to 1871, when Union veterans William Church and George Wingate got together to commiserate on their shared observation that Rebs were better shots than Yankees. Thus, notes Innis, who is black, the NRA has been aligned with the cause of racial equality since its beginnings. But somehow, the public image has slipped, he says. "How is it possible that with a start like that, the public image of the NRA has become so contorted?" he wonders.