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Below is the full transcript of President Obama's speech before the NAACP convention last night, as released by the White House.

More Coverage: Obama: Blacks Must "Seize Our Own Future"

President Obama: Thank you. What an extraordinary night, capping off an extraordinary week, capping off an extraordinary 100 years at the NAACP. (Applause.)

So Chairman Bond, Brother Justice, I am so grateful to all of you for being here. It's just good to be among friends. (Applause.)

It is an extraordinary honor to be here, in the city where the NAACP was formed, to mark its centennial. What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that we, as Americans, have traveled over the past 100 years. (Applause.)

It's a journey that takes us back to a time before most of us were born, long before the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Act, Brown v. Board of Education; back to an America just a generation past slavery. It was a time when Jim Crow was a way of life; when lynchings were all too common; when race riots were shaking cities across a segregated land.

It was in this America where an Atlanta scholar named W.E.B. Du Bois -- (applause) -- a man of towering intellect and a fierce passion for justice, sparked what became known as the Niagara movement; where reformers united, not by color, but by cause; where an association was born that would, as its charter says, promote equality and eradicate prejudice among citizens of the United States.

From the beginning, these founders understood how change would come -- just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom, and in the legislature, and in the hearts and the minds of Americans.

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in Politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**Congress continues wrestling with health care legislation...

**Quiet day for President Obama... no public events on his schedule...

**Sotomayor hearings wrap up...

**Administration on defense over economic stimulus...

**Frugal Sanford not so frugal, it seems...

HEALTH CARE: "Up one day. Down the next. Sometimes legislation to remake the nation's health care system moves in both directions at once," writes the Associated Press' David Espo.

"President Barack Obama's top domestic priority is on an unpredictable, midsummer trajectory as the White House and Democrats struggle to bring the complex, controversial issue to a vote in both houses before lawmakers leave town for their August break.

"For a brief moment Thursday, Senate Democrats could celebrate," adds Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown.

"Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus suggested for the first time publicly he was hoping for a bipartisan deal to pay for health care reform by the end of the day. The good feelings didn't last long.

"Within hours, Baucus (D-Mont.) said the talks were suspended until next week — defying President Barack Obama's request to produce an agreement by the weekend and throwing into doubt any hopes of meeting the president's August deadline to pass a Senate bill.

"That wasn't the only grim news for health reform advocates. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said plans being considered in the House and the Senate health committee would drive the nation further into debt — not create the savings repeatedly promised by President Barack Obama.

"And on top of that, Baucus had to call the White House and apologize for saying earlier in the day that Obama's resistance to taxing employer health benefits 'is not helping us' get a bill."

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Barack Obama, the first African-American president in U.S. history, told members of the NAACP Thursday evening that while the government "must be a force for equality," black Americans "have to seize our own future, each and every day."

The president stressed personal responsibility in his speech at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's 100th anniversary convention, saying that black parents must tell their children that their disadvantages in an unequal society are not an excuse for personal failures.

"No one has written your destiny for you," he said. "Your destiny is in your hands – you cannot forget that. That's what we have to teach all of our children: no excuses. No excuses."

In his first speech directly addressing race since taking office, Mr. Obama said "there probably has never been less discrimination in American than there is today."

"But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America," he said, specifically citing discrimination against African-Americans as well as Latinos, Muslims and gays and lesbians.

The president lauded civil rights leaders W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who "began the journey" that led to his appearance before the nation's oldest civil rights organization as president. Yet he said "too many barriers still remain" for African-Americans, who face higher unemployment and incarceration rates than "just about anyone else."

Mr. Obama also said AIDS has hit the African-American community "with disproportionate force" and lamented that blacks "are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance" than other Americans.

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It was clear that Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele was facing a skeptical crowd even before he stepped onstage to address the NAACP's 100th anniversary convention Tuesday.

Steele, the first African-American chair of the GOP, was introduced by a woman who told the assembled delegates she wanted to say a few words "before you start cheering for" Steele. At that, the delegates at the Hilton hotel in New York City broke out in laughter.

When Steele did step onstage, however, he garnered polite applause – and quickly quipped that he understands "that I'm here to protect the tax-exempt status of the NAACP." He then reached out to a constituency that often seems all but lost to Republicans in the age of Obama.

"The Republican Party, which has shared an inextricable link to the African-American community, has a way forward" in the "struggle for economic and educational opportunity," Steele said.

"Certainly my visit here does not represent some miraculous breakthrough in GOP-NAACP relations," he said. "This is the first baby step in many more baby steps to come. After all, we know that old loyalties and attitudes die hard. But the question is, if the GOP is willing to take those steps, will the NAACP be willing to do the same?"

After the speech, Steele, a longtime member of the NAACP, told CBSNews.com he felt welcome at the conference. Standing on the first floor of the Hilton, he asked those who are skeptical to give his party "a chance."

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At the NAACP convention Tuesday, CBSNews.com asked Representative John Conyers, Jr., a Michigan Democrat and the longest serving African-American in Congress, whether Republicans need to be careful in their questioning of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Some have suggested the GOP must walk a difficult line as it seeks to question the nominee in a way that does not alienating Hispanic voters.

"I hope they aren't" careful, Conyers quipped.

"Yes, they are in a difficult position," he said. "They are in a hopeless position. I mean, look, the Republican Party is disintegrating in front of our eyes."

Conyers then took a shot at former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

"When the most prominent spokesperson is a wonderful, soon to be ex-governor from Alaska, the party is on the verge of going out of business," he said.