Shays and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, have introduced legislation that would eliminate the disparity in sentences between powder cocaine and crack cocaine.

"The NAACP has worked for decades to help people of all races, nationalities and faiths unite on one premise, that all men and women are created equal," Shays said. "I'm grateful to have the opportunity to speak with NAACP members about issues I care about like reducing the disparity in crack-cocaine sentencing disparity, ending racial profiling, strengthening hate crime prevention laws and increasing affordable housing."

Congress established harsh mandatory minimum penalties for crack cocaine in 1986 after the death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, who had just been the top NBA pick by the Boston Celtics. Ironically, Bias died after snorting powder cocaine.

Since then, more than 76,000 crack offenders have been sentenced under the federal guidelines. In 2000, the average prison sentence for trafficking in crack was 117 months, while the average sentence for trafficking in powder cocaine was 74 months.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which was established in 1984 to bring more consistency to sentencing in federal courts, has recommended a reduction in harsh sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine

offenses since 1995 but had been thwarted by Congress until this year.

This May, the commission again proposed reducing penalties for crack cocaine to bring them more in line with powdered cocaine and Congress took no action to block the effort. The new guidelines took effect Nov. 1. The change is expected to reduce new crack sentences by an average of 15 months.

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, urged the commission earlier this year to make the sentencing guidelines retroactive.

"Few people today argue that policy makers could have foreseen, 20 years ago, the vastly disparate impact the 1986 law would have on communities of color, yet the fact is that African-Americans and especially low-income African-Americans continue to be disproportionately and severely penalized at much greater rates than white Americans for drug use," she said at the time.