After the question-and-answer period, he stepped into the audience, shaking hands and posing for photos with a swarm of NAACP members.
Evelyn Foxx of Gainesville, Fla., was one of them.
She was eager to meet the candidate and called McCain's Q&A "awesome."
But, she said, it wasn't enough to change her vote.
"I have no faith in the Republican Party," said Foxx, wearing an Obama button on her shirt. "America is in its worst state in my 57 years. The economy is terrible, banks are failing. The Republicans made a mess of things."
Willis Edwards, an NAACP board member from Los Angeles, said of McCain: "We invited him to be our guest, and we want to hear what he has to say. We are happy that he came."
At the NAACP's convention last year in Detroit, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado was the only Republican candidate to show.
President Bush has had a rocky relationship with the NAACP through much of his administration, addressing the NAACP only during his 2000 campaign and at the group's 2006 convention.
McCain apologized for skipping the NAACP's convention last year, noting campaign troubles.
But he thanked the organization for its invitation this year and praised civil rights veterans.
He recalled that he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, feeling "perhaps even more uncertain and alarmed for my country" in captivity.
In April, on the 40th anniversary of King's death, McCain said he had made a mistake in opposing a federal holiday to mark King's birthday, but he noted that he realized his mistake and later backed a state holiday in Arizona to honor King.
kelly.brewington@baltsun.com
