How'd Obama do? One word, say NAACP attendees: 'Awesome'

HOME RUN. Crushed it. Out of the park.

That was the reaction at the Pennsylvania Convention Center yesterday after President Obama delivered a speech to the NAACP's annual convention calling for an end to mass incarceration and a slew of longstanding but wrongheaded criminal-justice policies.

"Awesome speech," said Kanika Wright, a certified nursing assistant from Milton, Del.

Wright said that fixing mandatory minimum sentencing laws is long overdue. Obama wants to reduce or eliminate the laws, which have led to an explosion in the federal prison population since they were applied to drug crimes in the 1980s.

"It gave me hope that maybe there will be a law where [inmates] can come home and build families," Wright said. "If we build families, we can rebuild communities."

Eber Devine, a North Philadelphia political consultant, said the speech was "inspiring," particularly Obama's plan for addressing the root causes of urban violence rather than relying on police to "contain the hopelessness."

"That's stuff that hits the core of what's going on in Philadelphia," Devine said. "He hit it right down the pike."

Cornell William Brooks, the NAACP's president and CEO, gave the speech glowing reviews.

"For many people, this is not a policy debate," he said. "This is a home debate, because so many of our sons and daughters are locked up unnecessarily [and] unnecessarily long, for reasons that cannot be explained under the Constitution with good conscience."

Brooks said he was moved by Obama's call to re-evaluate the nation's incarceration rate, which outpaces that of the top 35 countries in Europe combined.

"He made the case for America's journey for justice, because none of this goes through Congress without creating grassroots support," Brooks said. "There's a kind of consensus in Washington that it makes sense, in terms of saving tax dollars and saving human lives, but thus far they've not acted."

John Lemon, a retired New York City transit worker, said he would've liked Obama to tackle criminal-justice reform earlier in his presidency, but added: "I understand politics." Lemon said ex-offenders need access to jobs after serving time so they don't fall back into the same cycle of crime and incarceration.

"The money spent in the prison system is crazy," Lemon said. "That can be invested in jobs. We have too many young people looking for jobs, and when you have too much time on your hands you get into trouble."

Lemon said he was optimistic that the political winds could lead to bipartisan solutions between liberal Democrats, for instance, and libertarian-leaning Republicans.

His message for Obama, who has a year and a half left in office:

"You gotta keep on pushing," Lemon said. "Keep on pushing."

About an hour before Obama took the stage, Nancy Carroll sat hunched in a wheelchair outside the convention center at 12th and Arch streets. She and a handful of supporters passed out fliers about her grandson, Tyree Carroll, who was kicked and punched by at least 12 police officers when he was arrested in East Germantown in April.

Video footage of the incident went viral last week. The cops are shown assaulting him while he's on the ground and unarmed. Police say he bit them.

Nancy Carroll said Obama "needs to talk about [justice reform] more, even if he doesn't want to." Tyree Carroll is still behind bars.

"It doesn't do me no good to get my hopes up that he'll be released soon, only to be let down again," she said. "Once he gets home, then I'll rejoice."