The Nation - News from July 14, 1989

President Bush and other Republican leaders who say they want to reach out to blacks should “put up or shut up” on civil rights, Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown told the NAACP on the fifth and final day of the group’s annual convention in Detroit. “We hear new words from the Republican Party,” said Brown, the first black to head the Democratic National Committee. “In politics, as in poker, there’s a phrase for it. I believe it’s time that we tell George Bush, Dan Quayle, (Housing and Urban Development Secretary) Jack Kemp, (GOP National Chairman) Lee Atwater and the rest of those Republicans it’s time to put up or shut up.” Kemp and Quayle addressed the convention earlier in the week.