State of the Black Union 2006 in Houston on Feb. 25th:

Saturday in Houston at St. Agnes Church in South Park, Smiley convened the first public debate about the agenda. More than 8,000 people registered to attend the conference, and by 8:30 a.m. the 5,500-seat sanctuary was filled to capacity. ...

"A covenant untested means nothing," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, the first speaker on the second panel of the day. The former Democratic presidential candidate challenged the audience to immediately put into action the blueprints outlined in the book (Last year in Atlanta, the assembled leaders recommended the creation of a national action plan for addressing the concerns that had arise during the discussion. The Covenant, a 254-page book published by Third World Press, was the response to that call.)

Smiley started the conversations as a counterpoint to the president's annual State of the Union speech in January because he said the president usually fails to talk about matters important to blacks.

This year, he was angered by the absence of any reference to Hurricane Katrina and the devastation in New Orleans.

Princeton professor Cornel West said that should have surprised no one.

"There's a parallel between the killing fields of the slave ships ... and the killing fields of the Super Dome," said West, co-author of a curriculum based on the covenant and black history.

One of the most strident panelists of the day was actor and activist Harry Belafonte who again called the president a terrorist and reminded the audience that the murders of civil rights leaders, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, were acts of domestic terrorism.