Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky stepped inside an auditorium at Howard University’s School of Business on Wednesday to deliver a message to young black voters: the Republican Party wants you back.
In a speech focused largely on the history of blacks within the Republican Party, especially in Kentucky, the libertarian-minded Republican argued that blacks were better served by Republicans’ free-market policies than the government assistance offered by Democrats.
“The Democrat promise is tangible and puts food on the table, but too often doesn’t lead to jobs or meaningful success,†he said. “The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth.â€
Recalling a time between the Civil War and the civil rights movement when Republicans and black people were bedfellows in the fight for black equality - electing the first black United States senator, sending the first 20 black members to Congress and ending slavery - Mr. Paul acknowledged that the relationship had languished.
“Now Republicans face a daunting task,†he said. “Several generations of black voters have never voted Republican and are not very open to even considering the option.â€
Mr. Paul came under fire in his 2010 Senate campaign after he suggested that he opposed the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that forced private businesses to end segregation. He later clarified that he would oppose efforts to repeal the law. On Wednesday, he said he had never wavered on supporting the law.
“No Republican questions or disputes civil rights,†he said Wednesday. “I’ve never wavered in my support for civil rights or the Civil Rights Act.â€
“The dispute, if there is one, has always been about how much of the remedy should come under federal or state or private purview,†he said.
Mr. Paul also defended Republican-led efforts to tighten voter identification requirements in the states, which have been likened to Jim Crow-era poll tests. Democrats and voting rights advocates have accused Republicans of using the laws to deter poor and minority voters, who are more likely than other groups to not have government-issued identification.
“I think if you liken using a driver’s license to a literacy test you demean the horror of what happened in the ’40s and ’50s. It was horrific. No one is in favor of that,†Mr. Paul said. “But showing your driver’s license to have an honest election is not unreasonable.â€
In pushing for school choice and highlighting his proposal to repeal federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which have been shown to have a disproportionate effect on blacks, Mr. Paul got applause from the young audience.
The crowd appeared to be mostly receptive to his speech, although one or two students were kicked out for trying to raise a banner that mentioned white supremacy.
And when the senator questioned whether students knew that Republicans had founded the N.A.A.C.P., a student shouted, “We know our history.â€
Mr. Paul said that he had not intended to insult the students.
The speech by Mr. Paul, a possible presidential candidate in 2016, fits neatly into Republicans’ tactical change after the 2012 elections. After taking a shellacking that included Mitt Romney’s losing the presidential race while pulling in only 6 percent of the black vote, Republicans are spending millions of dollars and untold hours trying to establish the G.O.P. as an inclusive party.
The choice of Howard University as a venue for his speech is notable not just for its location three miles from Capitol Hill. Mr. Paul is the first major Republican figure to speak on the school’s campus since Gen. Colin Powell delivered the commencement address in 1994. By contrast, Democrats like then-Senator Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey have headlined graduation and charter day ceremonies for several years. President Bill Clinton is this year’s commencement speaker.
Byron Jackson, a 2007 Howard alumnus, said he was happy to have heard Mr. Paul speak at Howard. But he said he was disappointed that Mr. Paul did not include specifics about the Republicans’ outreach strategy.
“I do appreciate that to have this conversation, he went to what could be the bastion of black liberal politics,†he said.
“But I was hoping that he would have the chance to talk more about exactly how the G.O.P. would continue to engage the African-American community and try to win more black voters,†said Mr. Jackson, who became a Republican in 2011 but voted for President Obama.
Mr. Jackson said that the speech was a good start at reaching into black communities, but that Republicans still needed to connect with black clergy and cultivate black Republican political candidates.
“They just need to put a browner face on the party,†he said.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Dr. Benjamin Carson at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last month.