Obama to address NAACP convention in Phila.

President Obama will visit Philadelphia to deliver the keynote address July 14 at the 106th NAACP Annual Convention, the organization announced Wednesday.

The conference, whose theme is "Pursuing Liberty in the Face of Injustice," will come at a time of racial unrest throughout the country.

"That's a great moment," Rodney Muhammad, president of Philadelphia's NAACP chapter, said upon hearing the news of the president's visit.

While in Philadelphia, Obama will also attend an event for the upcoming Democratic National Convention, a White House official said.

It will be the second time during his presidency that Obama will speak at the NAACP's national event. In 2009, months after his inauguration as the nation's first black president, he addressed attendees in New York for the organization's centennial celebration.

The NAACP has promoted its convention, which runs from July 11 to 15 at the Convention Center, as a time to discuss voting rights, criminal-justice reform, and equality in economics and education ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

"President Barack Obama, having spoken eloquently of grace to a grieving nation in a moment of crisis in Charleston, will now address the social and economic challenges of our time in the hometown of American freedom - Philadelphia," NAACP president and chief executive Cornell William Brooks said in a statement.

Muhammad said invitations were extended to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. He was elated to hear of Obama's commitment.

"It's a pregnant moment," Muhammad said. "Violence is not new to us. But this level of violence in the church, we haven't seen in a long time. No doubt the president will still have this on his mind."

Mayor Nutter, Sen. Robert P. Casey (D., Pa.), and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) are among the elected officials confirmed as guest speakers.

"As the birthplace of liberty, our city is the perfect location to host the NAACP, one of the leading organizations for social change in the world for more than a century," Nutter said in a statement. "We are thrilled that some of the most pressing social, economic and civil rights issues of the 21st century will be addressed at this convention here in Philadelphia."