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Black GOP Conference Coincides With Florida Classic

Posted Nov 1, 2007 by William March

Updated Nov 1, 2007 at 01:43 PM

The Florida Republican will hold a conference for black Republicans featuring football great Lynn Swann and Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, in Orlando Nov. 16 – the same weekend as the Florida A&M-Bethune Cookman College Florida Classic football game.

Meanwhile, state party Chairman Jim Greer apparently has made peace with a black party activist who had objected to Greer’s minority outreach initiative, which the conference is part of.

Greer, Gov. Charlie Crist and state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, chairwoman of a new black Republicans advisory council Greer is establishing, will speak at a lunch during the conference. Swann and Williams will be on a “Why I Am A Republican” panel discussion later.

Holding the event in conjunction with the Florida Classic – one of the premier sporting events of the year for thousands of black Floridians – is likely to boost attendance. Greer said he expected to send thousands of invitations to black Republicans and no-party voters, but hasn’t predicted an attendance figure.

Greer has acknowledged the difficulty of the GOP seeking to woo black voters, the nation’s most reliable Democratic voting group. But he says the future of the party depends on inclusiveness and achieving more diversity, and that his outreach effort will be more substantial and sustained than those in the past.

He encountered one difficulty early on, however, when Winter Park lawyer Ometrias “Deon” Long, chairman of the Florida Federation of Black Republican Clubs, objected to the outreach plan.

Long said the initiative didn’t adequately involve the clubs.

Greer met with Long this week, and the party afterward sent out a news release saying the breach was healed. It quoted Long as saying, “I look forward to working side by side with Chairman Greer and the Party.”