Black Conservatives Bar Press from National Gathering

A throng of black conservatives is meeting at the National Press Club today and, somewhat ironically, barring the press from their proceedings.

More than a dozen right-wing African American leaders—some of them more infamous than famous—are set to speak at the event, including Alan Keyes, Star Parker, Timothy F. Johnson of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, and C. Mason Weaver, one of the people profiled earlier this year in The Root’s rundown of 2010’s black Republican congressional candidates.

Journalist Christopher Chambers, a member of the National Press Club, was on-hand this morning and attempted to enter the meeting to observe and do some reporting. Alas, he was turned away at the door. “[T]hey told me it was a private event open only to registrants and invited members of the media,” he wrote in an e-mail.

-Cord Jefferson is a staff writer at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.