http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04297/400459.stmYesterday was drearily predictable. Heinz Kerry showed up late for a speech before the convention of the Pennsylvania Conference of the NAACP. She delivered, in her tiny voice, a speech that, with quiet assurance -- statistics, facts, personal histories rolled out with precision -- took the crowd in her hand.
"We still have two school systems, separate but unequal," she told them. "You cannot promise to leave no child behind and then leave the money behind." She took a shot at minimum educational achievement standards set by the Bush administration, but left largely unfunded. "Otherwise, all they become is traps."
This sense of exclusion runs deep among members of the NAACP, who are tired of hearing about how well off they are, when unemployment for black Americans is double the national average and infant mortality remains a scandal with numbers to prove it.
This crowd loved Teresa Heinz Kerry because she behaved like herself -- unapologetically and in the most personal way. She talked about growing up in Africa and marching against the move in 1959 to segregate her university in South Africa, and ended with a coda straight out of the NAACP's language.
"When John Kerry is elected, he will lift every voice, because he knows every voice matters," she said. She promised a face of America this crowd seeks: "A face that is compassionate but not condescending, a face that is strong but not threatening, a face that is proud but not arrogant."