Flash player is required to view weather conditions. Download

site web  

HAMILTON — Michelle Obama is scheduled to speak this week at The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. in downtown Cincinnati.

Held at the Duke Energy Convention Center, 525 Elm St., the five-day annual meeting is scheduled to begin today, Sept. 8 and end Friday, Sept. 12, with a baptism and communion service at U.S. Bank Arena, according to the convention's Web site.

The wife of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is set to deliver her remarks Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 10, but the exact time is still being determined, said Yvonne Drayton, public relations coordinator for the convention.

Michelle Obama's speech will be open to the public, according to the Rev. H.L. Harvey, Jr., one of the people responsible for bringing the convention to Cincinnati.

Harvey said scheduling conflicts led the campaigns of both Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to decline invitations for their candidate to speak at the event. McCain's campaign offered to send a representative in his place, but Harvey said the NBCUSA turned down that proposal.

Although Harvey is pleased Michelle Obama will address conventioneers Wednesday, he said the candidates themselves should be there.

"I think that because we are the largest African-American convention in the United States that he (Barack Obama) should have came himself and even McCain should have come," he said.