From today's AP wire via The Arizona Republic, "Bush still shunning NAACP meeting":

Since the days of Warren G. Harding, presidents have met at the White House with leaders of the NAACP. Not President Bush, at least not yet.

More than halfway through his presidency, Bush has yet to receive the nation's oldest civil rights group or the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights, an umbrella organization.

The president met with the Congressional Black Caucus for just an hour or so during his first month in office but has not responded to a half-dozen subsequent requests to meet again.

While Bush, who got only 9 percent of the Black vote in 2000, has shunned meeting with established Black groups, he has reached out to carefully chosen minority audiences and to civil rights advocates less critical of his policies. One example is the National Urban League, whose annual conference Bush is to address in Pittsburgh today.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said he requested meetings with Bush in 2001 and 2002, and "was told politely, in writing, that he'd love to meet but his schedule just didn't allow it."