Veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond opened the 93rd annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Sunday night with an uncompromising attack on the Bush administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft and what Bond called "a right-wing conspiracy."

Julian Bond, NAACP National Board of Directors' chairman, speaks during the opening session of the 93rd annual NAACP convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Sunday, July 7, 2002. (AP Photo/Richard Carson)

"We have a president who owes his election more to a dynasty than to democracy," said Bond, chairman of the NAACP board, in an ardent opening address at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

"When he spoke to our convention in Baltimore in 2000, he promised to enforce the civil rights laws," Bond said. "We know he was in the oil business. We just didn't know it was snake oil.

"We have an attorney general who is a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Jerry Falwell. And too often, one political party is shameless and the other is spineless."

In a spirited mass meeting replete with Gospels and prayer, members of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group gathered for a weeklong convention under the theme "Freedom Under Fire."

In a speech frequently interrupted by applause, Bond, a former Georgia legislator and civil rights activist who was elected NAACP chairman in 1998, was crystal clear about the meaning of the theme.

Calling the attorney general "J. Edgar Ashcroft," Bond compared new FBI anti-terrorist guidelines to COINTELPRO, a controversial counterintelligence program implemented by Hoover, the late former director of the FBI.

"The FBI tried to disrupt the civil rights movement," Bond said. "They wanted to smear Martin Luther King Jr. They not only wanted him discredited, they wanted him dead, threatening him with the release of damaging information if he did not commit suicide.

"We thought we had put a stop to Hoover's program of spies and lies in the 1970s after its abuses were exposed. Now under the guise of fighting terrorism, the FBI is going back to spying on law-abiding citizens."

Bond was especially harsh on President Bush, saying he has appointed racially hostile, conservative Republicans to key civil rights positions, including the voting rights section of the Department of Justice.

"While the administration is busy asserting sweeping police powers over the American people, it is sweeping voting rights violations from the 2000 election under the rug," Bond said. "The Justice Department whittled 11,000 election complaints down to five potential lawsuits, including a mere three in Florida. Those focus on Florida's failure to provide language assistance to Spanish- and Creole-speaking voters in three counties."

The Florida debacle that threw Bush's election into question was triggered, in part, by a massive NAACP voter-turnout effort that propelled blacks to the polls in record numbers.

A U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report on the state's election results found that blacks were nearly 10 times more likely than non-blacks to have their ballots rejected.

Only 537 votes separated Bush from Democrat Al Gore, who was supported by 90 percent of Florida's blacks.

"We support language assistance to voters, but most of the thousands of black Floridians who were denied the right to vote speak English," Bond said. "The margin of their disenfranchisement surpassed the margin of victory for candidate Bush.

"There is a right-wing conspiracy, and it is operating out of the United States Department of Justice."

Sparked by the NAACP's sophisticated turnout drive that hammered candidates on issues like racial profiling and affirmative action, 1 million more blacks voted in 2000 than in the 1996 presidential election.

"We've got to ensure a massive turnout of minority voters in this year's elections," Bond said. "Our future is on the ballot in every state.

"If we don't vote, we lose, and our children and grandchildren will lose, too."

Last year, the NAACP commissioned the first scientific survey of its 500,000 members. According to the findings that Bond cited, 20 percent of the members are under age 35 and 30 percent are over age 65. Half of the members live in cities, and 35 percent live in suburbs. Thirty percent have advanced degrees, and 49 percent have white-collar jobs. Half of the membership earn between $30,000 and $100,000 a year, and 20 percent earn more than $100,000 a year.

"We are a force to be reckoned with: well-educated, well-informed and strongly committed to social justice," Bond said. "And we vote."

In a separate address, Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, echoed Bond's criticism of the Bush administration.

"Nearly two weeks ago, the caucus convened a hearing and town hall meeting to call attention to how civil rights protections under the Bush administration have been rolled back," Johnson said.

"Under the current administration, the protections of many of our most cherished civil rights have received scant attention," she said.

She said the Department of Justice under Ashcroft has become a partisan institution that has politicized the decisions of the department's voting rights section.

At the convention today, NAACP leaders will release a report card on state officials based on what they have done to end voter abuses. Another report card Wednesday will rate members of Congress on key issues and votes.

Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

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