For those unable to attend the annual State of the Black World Conference in New Orleans last week, C-SPAN provided an enticing glimpse on Sunday afternoon, and if this one workshop was indicative of the five-day event, then it was both lively and informative.

And how could it not be with such notables as Mtangulizi Sanyika, Dr. Iva Carruthers, Faya Rose Sanders and Dr. Julianne Malveaux responding to questions from Mark Thompson and Bev Smith about the impact of the White House conquest by President-elect Barack Obama. Add Dr. Ron Walters, Marc Morial, Nkechi Taifa, Elsie Scott and New Orleans Council member Cynthia Willard-Lewis and you have the base of a most formidable think tank, which has always been one of the intentions of Dr. Ron Daniels, founder and president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and the conference’s sponsor.

Given the location of the conference, it was no surprise that Hurricane Katrina, which caused so much devastation three years ago, was a key topic. Ms. Willard-Lewis firmly addressed the issue and told the overflowing crowd at the Ernest Memorial Convention Center in the Astor Crowne Plaza that recovery in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is “far from complete ... but we are doing everything we can to create a stronger New Orleans and a strong legacy for our children.”

Does President-elect Barack Obama have a Black agenda and should he have one were among the first questions put to the panel. Dr. Walters, director of the University of Maryland’s African-American Leadership Center, said it was not so much that Obama has an agenda, “but what are we going to do? We need to get involved in civic engagement” in order to ensure Black America’s entry “back on the stage of history.”

“It’s not about a moment,” said Dr. Malveaux, president of Bennett College for Women in North Carolina, “it’s about a movement.” She said she would gladly exchange a full employment program rather than some Black face in a high place.

Scott, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Foundation, believes that Obama will not have a Black agenda, but the “CBC will have one. President Obama cannot be expected to represent just us, so we need our own agenda.”

No one was better prepared to hammer home the neglect of Katrina than Marc Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans (1994–2002). “It wasn’t discussed at all during the presidential campaign,” he lamented, “and it’s a metaphor for our critical issues.” As president and CEO of the National Urban League, Morial said he had faith that Obama will do the right thing. “He knows the meaning of city ... we didn’t elect a savior, but he can make a difference.”

Attorney Taifa stressed the importance of various pending legislation, particularly measures underway to end the disparity between the sentences for the possession of crack and powder cocaine. “Yes, there must be accountability from our community, but there’s a need for fairness from our criminal justice system,” she asserted.

Taifa also noted the Youth Promise Act put forth by Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois and H.R. 7115, “The Communities in Action Neighborhood Defense and Opportunity” (CAN DO) Act, which is among several recommendations offered by the conference’s sponsor.

“I was not originally a supporter of Obama,” said Sanders, a longtime activist and founder of the Voting Rights Museum in Selma, Alabama, “but when I heard his plan on education, I changed my mind. He said he wanted all of our children to get a quality education. In other words, he made it clear that our children can learn.” There was rousing applause after Sanders noted that institutional racism, despite Obama’s victory, was alive and well in America.

For several poignant moments, Dr. Carruthers, general secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, held the audience in rapt attention as she spelled out the need to continue the struggle for reparations. Moreover, she agreed with a position announced earlier by Dr. Walters that “our future depends on what happens on the outside of the White House, not on the inside.”

Perhaps the strongest pronouncements came from Sanyika, project manager of the African American Leadership Conference. In a series of proposed questions, he asked President-elect Obama about his domestic and foreign policy plans. “Will you end the neocolonial relationship between the United States and Africa?” he said. “And if he can’t answer the questions, then I would appreciate that.”

Beyond raising a number of pertinent questions, the conference, according to Dr. Daniels, had prepared a list of recommendations and action plans. “When you organize in our community, you can bring about positive change,” he said. And some of that change will probably emerge from the conference, which by the lineup of participants had every promise of accomplishing great things, despite the circumstances that kept such leaders as Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton from attending.

“Our purpose is to deliberately focus on that which is achievable and attainable – things that are within reach,” Daniels told the press at the beginning of the conference. The panel on C-SPAN provided a solid step in that direction.