DECATUR - U.S. Sen. Barak Obama's rise to within striking distance of the presidency may be powering the old saw that the NAACP has outlived its usefulness.

"Without question, we are doing much better than we ever have in the history of this country," Carl Mack said in an interview Saturday evening before the 68th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet of the Decatur branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the Decatur Conference Center and Hotel. "Every day, I believe we're getting better."

But he said that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of wrongs for the 99-year-old organization to right in the arenas of criminal justice, health care, economics and more.

Thus the message he planned to deliver to more than 450 people attending the banquet was this: "We need the NAACP now as much as ever."

Executive director since 2005 of the National Society of Black Engineers, Mack said he was honored to serve as president of the NAACP's Seattle-King County branch from November 2002 to March 2005, during which time its membership tripled and it received the organization's most outstanding branch award for its classification.

"Clearly, this organization deserves honor, humility and respect," Mack said. "Its track record and some of the hard-fought gains it has achieved are unprecedented."

Yet after former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett said in 2005 that the crime rate could be reduced by aborting all African-American babies, Mack said he decided to look beyond the racism and hatefulness of those words to see if they contained any truth.

He found that while whites make up 80 percent of the U.S. population and commit 60 percent to 70 percent of the most violent crimes, they account for less than half the prison population.

"How is it nearly 1 million African-American men are incarcerated, compared to 777,000 white men?" he said.

Decatur branch President Jeffrey Perkins said the banquet, besides calling attention to the struggle for civil rights, is also the major fundraiser for the branch and "a time to recognize people in our community."

The Joe Slaw Civil Rights Award went to the Rev. Eddie Mabry, branch vice president and a retired history of Christianity professor at Augustana College who has long served New Salem Baptist Church.

The President's Award went to attorney Bill Faber, who has sought damages from landlords in Macon County Circuit Court on behalf of children who developed lead poisoning while living in rental housing.

Theresa Churchill can be reached at tchurchill@herald-review.com or 421-7978.