Attorney General Lynch caps NAACP convention by saying more work to be done

PHILADELPHIA - Times have changed, Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the audience Wednesday night at the closing dinner of the annual NAACP convention.

Late scholar Ralph Bunche, the first black person awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, may have endured Jim Crow restrictions, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., may have been beaten bloody in 1965 as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., she said. But today, the 8,000 people attending the annual meeting of the country's oldest and largest civil rights organization were able to attend a tony dinner at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Lynch said.

Still, that does not mean there is not justice and civil rights work to do. "We can't stop to celebrate – we have to keep working," she said. "We know that nowadays, discrimination is hidden."

In a week in which criminal justice issues and police misconduct were the thread throughout the convention, and in which President Obama made an impassioned plea for reforming why and how the United States incarcerates people, Lynch said she also would like to see reforms in the system.

The country needs to focus more on providing more alternatives to prison, which are good for the children of convicts and convicts themselves, and on restoring the right to vote for those who have been through the criminal justice system.

She also weighed in on the issue of police-community relations, a common theme at this gathering in light of the string of incidents in which unarmed black civilians have been hurt or killed by police in recent years. A few weeks ago, she began traveling around the country to observe programs set up to improve relations between communities and the police.

"I've been encouraged by what I've seen so far and by the conversations I've been a part of – especially with young people," she said, also adding that she has been impressed by the youth activism she's seen. "In so many ways, our movement has always been inspired by young people."

Lynch told an anecdote in which she recalled something her father told her about the late Martin Luther King, who came to visit her native Greensboro, N.C., in the days of the sit ins.

"My father remembers him … saying, 'If God had asked me when I wanted to be born, I'd want to be born now,' " Lynch recalled. "Even in those times of adversity, he saw the opportunity for this country to become the beacon of hope envisioned by its founders."

She added that she feels the same, and that she has confidence things will change. "My friends, I'm glad I was born now," she said.