Yesterday at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., a group of distinguished conservative activists launched "Restore the Dream 2014," a campaign to address the serious culture problems impacting the African-American community.
“Hope and change liberals have failed the black community in America,” said Niger Innis, Executive Director of TheTeaParty.net and main spokesperson of the campaign. “The sad state of affairs didn't come to fruition under one president, but tragically under a presidency that promised so much; the situation in these communities has gotten worse.”
Organizers of yesterday’s event provided a number of eye-opening statistics to illustrate the current state of affairs for the African-American community:
Only 52% of African-American males graduate from high school in four years.
Unemployment rate among African-Americans is 11.5%. That’s twice the national average.
The poverty rate for African-Americans has increased sharply since 2008, rising from 12% to 16.1%.
The average income for African-Americans is $20,000 less than the national average.
African-American home ownership is 21% less than the rest of the country.
According to the 2013 National Report Card, the gap in fourth-grade math test scores between black and white students has widened to 40 points – the largest gap since the national study began in 2003.
Partners in the campaign – including Dr. Alveda King, radio host Wayne Dupree, and TheTeaParty.net founder Todd Cefaratti – aim to give hope to America’s urban centers by creating work opportunities and replacing the liberal ideology of welfare and dependency with that of conservative principled action.
“Reflecting upon the American Dream as well as the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Restore the Dream campaign seeks to energize and urge the African-American community to embrace liberty, individual freedom, free markets and school-choice education.”
During an appearance on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show back in March, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) commented on the need to create work opportunities to ameliorate the issues — such as poverty, unemployment, and broken homes — that impact not only the black community, but Americans in general — Americans whom have suffered in one way or another from ineffective liberal policies.
“We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work,” he said.
“… and so, there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”
While many critics labeled Paul Ryan a “racist” and accused him of blaming poverty on “laziness” among men in inner cities, Niger Innis, the forerunner of Restore the Dream 2014, commended the House Representative’s statement as simply “profound.”
“It’s not a black thing… It’s an American thing," he made clear.
From Washington, D.C., the campaign will head to North Carolina on October 22nd and conclude in Ferguson, Mo. October 25th.
For more information, visit restorethedream2014.com.