US: "The Race Is On" read the slogan draped beside the stage at the annual congress of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in Philadelphia. And there is no doubt who the vast majority of the 5,000 delegates want to win in the race for the White House.
"Kerr-eee! Kerr-eee" they chanted as Democratic candidate John Kerry entered the back of the vast convention centre yesterday morning and the loudspeakers blasted out Sister Sledge's soul anthem, We Are Family.
The Massachusetts senator was delayed for five minutes by hugs, handshakes and high-fives as he made his way to the stage to address the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organisation - and to take full advantage of the fact that George Bush had declined an invitation to make a similar appearance.
Mr Kerry, who mostly avoids direct criticism of Mr Bush, eased the gloves off a bit: "A president needs to talk to all the people," he said. "This president may be too busy to talk to you, but I have news for you: he's going to have plenty of time after November 2nd."
Mr Bush is the first sitting president not to address the NAACP since Herbert Hoover (1929- 1933). He may have written off the black vote, as 90 per cent of African Americans voted for Al Gore in 2002, and there has been smouldering anger ever since at the disenfranchisement of hundreds of black voters in Florida.
But some delegates confided they would have given him a respectful hearing and that by staying away, Mr Bush had forfeited the support of many less partisan African Americans.
The White House said Mr Bush turned down his invitation to speak because the NAACP leadership "has clearly crossed the line in partisanship and civility", but that the president would address the Urban League, a more middle-class civil rights group, next week.
The bad blood between Mr Bush and NAACP dates back to the 2000 campaign, when an NAACP election committee ran an ad portraying the then Texas governor as unsympathetic to the fate of James Byrd, dragged to his death in Texas in 1998 by three whites.
NAACP chairman Julian Bond poked fun at Mr Bush yesterday. "If he didn't go where people criticise him, he'd never leave home," he said, to roars of laughter.
A greying veteran of the 1960s lunch-counter sit-ins, Mr Bond has lost none of his fire. Now a professor and dressed elegantly in white suit and silver tie, he accused Republicans of playing the race card in elections, stea-ling black votes in 2000, and running a deficit so big it killed social programmes and underfunded education for black children.
He got thunderous applause in his convention speech when he declared the Iraq war to be "without reason or necessity", and brought about with the "crass obstruction of the truth".
The anti-war sentiment was fired up by a free screening earlier in the week of Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which 2,000 delegates watched, some in uniform, and which Mr Bond likened in importance to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Mr Bond had critical words for Democrats too, saying they too often were an "amen corner" and that they should not to be "spineless", but he had only warm praise for Mr Kerry, who he said supported civil rights and "who has been in combat, not just in a photo-op."
Nevertheless it was the defeat of Mr Bush in November's presidential election that was imperative. "The stakes are high," he said, "and the consequence of loss almost too dire to bear." The Democratic hopeful played along, promising to be "a uniter, not someone who seeks to divide our nation by race or riches or by any other label." "Some people have better things to do," he said. "But there is no place I would rather be today than here at the convention of the NAACP."
Lacing his speech with at least 50 repetitions of the word "values", his new campaign mantra, Mr Kerry criticised high unemployment, sub-standard education, and lack of healthcare among blacks and said he had a plan to change all that.
A woman shouted from the floor, "We love you!" Mr Kerry turned to her and replied: "I want to turn this love into votes."