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OUR POWER, OUR MESSAGE DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me thank our illustrious leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose visionary leadership is going to carry us into the 117th Congress.
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty acts legislatively on her history. She is from Ohio, one of the major stops of the Underground Railroad. In fact, Cincinnati, Ohio, has one of the most monumental monuments, if you will, to that freedom train, that courage, of Harriet Tubman. I might say that our chairwoman's actions are in resemblance to Harriet Tubman. We are grateful for her vision.
We will tomorrow, at the Congressional Black Caucus, unveil the talent of tens upon tens of members of the Congressional Black Caucus and lay out our legacy, Our Power, Our Message. I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership.
It is as well my honor to be able to co-chair this with, if I might with a degree of familiarity, a brother from the Bronx. I am delighted that a working man's and woman's representative has come to be able to shine, a man who is a product of public housing, public schools, and public hospitals, and who had a dream of lifting up his community and building back a better Bronx.
I am delighted that at 25, against all odds, he became the youngest elected official in New York City and the first openly LGBTQ elected official from the Bronx. He doesn't know that his reputation preceded him as a dynamic get-her-done person.
I will repeat his motto before I begin my remarks, and that is Ritchie Torres' remarks and life motto is as follows: ``My motto is life is simple. If you do nothing, nothing will change.''
Wow, what a piercing message for all of us, Republicans and Democrats, to do something good.
His motto is: ``If you do nothing, nothing will change. We can build a better Bronx, and we will do it together.''
I am delighted to coanchor with Mr. Ritchie Torres for the 117th Congress.
General Leave
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am particularly delighted to begin my remarks, as I continue to weave in and out tonight, and then, with my remarks, will yield to Mr. Torres as well.
This is a moment in history. Tonight, we will explore honoring our 50-year legacy, Our Power, Our Message.
As I was flying up today, I was very happy to find on the movie list on an airplane ``Good Trouble,'' the movie about John Lewis, with so many Members telling their story. I think I will just simply say: Good trouble.
Tonight, we hope to exemplify good trouble as we honor the 50-year legacy of the Congressional Black Caucus and emphasize Our Power, Our Message. We want to be in good trouble.
I am honored in the 117th Congress to chair the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee and serve as a senior member on the Judiciary Committee, where, in addition to the powers of Congressional Black Caucus, we will seek to have justice rain down like righteous waters.
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We will do that, however, with the 55 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I think our numbers are higher than that, and they are all on different committees. Amazing. They will pierce the seams of equality and justice in the 117th Congress. So we will have our past, but we will have our future.
Let me briefly talk about where we were 400 years ago. Ships sailed from the west coast of Africa and in the process began one of mankind's most inhumane practices, human bondage and slavery. Approximately 4 million Africans and their descendents were enslaved in the United States and colonies, that became the United States, from 1619 to 1865.
The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 to 1865, and certainly American slavery is our original sin. But tonight you will hear woven throughout the remarks of so many of my colleagues, how out of these ashes of enslaved Africans, out of the toll of death from those held in bondage, out of the heroes that fought in the Civil War, who rose up out of the south and the north and came and bled for this Nation, out of that death toll of American fighters who happen to be present and former slaves and suffered indignities, and continue until the end of the 1800s and into Jim Crow-ism, you will find the overcomers.
You will find those who have climbed and clawed their way to leadership. Of course, there will be those who say there is no need for an apology, which is part of H.R. 40, no need for a commission to pierce into these ongoing disparities because you have overcome. In fact, this caucus was founded by overcomers, an array of talented men and women who themselves are the cornerstone of democracy and legitimacy.
Who would ever forget the Honorable Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to run for the Presidency, an African-American woman, Black woman, and a woman to run for the Presidency, never to be daunted, never to be rejected, never to be denied?
Or William L. Clay, Sr., who chaired the Education and Labor Committee, the first Black man, or the second, to do so.
George W. Collins, a pioneer and powerhouse out of Chicago, Illinois.
John Conyers, the dean of the United States Congress, and the first Member of Congress to hire Rosa Parks, and a Member of Congress--I think it is his distinction alone--to have Dr. Martin Luther King endorse him.
Ron Dellums, he was a man that was told: You sit in the chair with Pat Schroeder, in the Armed Services Committee. We are not interested in you being here in the first place. And Ron Dellums rose to be chair of the Armed Services Committee.
And how much of an overcomer they are: Charles Diggs, the leading man on Africa.
Augustus Hawkins, the leading man on the empowerment of working families.
Again, Ralph Metcalfe, one of the early pioneers of elected Black Members of Congress, again, out of Chicago.
Parren Mitchell, the father of affirmative action.
Robert C. Nix, a pioneer out of Pennsylvania.
Charles B. Rangel, who worked his way up from the streets of Harlem to the U.S. Attorney's Office to then be chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
Lou Stokes, a major force on the Appropriations Committee and healthcare in America.
And, of course, delegate Walter E. Fauntroy, who I met in South Carolina with a commitment to defeat a segregationist who chaired the District of Columbia Committee.
Overcomers, but each of them will say that this definition of who we are should not be on the few, it should be on the many. That means that, we, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus, stand here today to be able to call as our mandate, our challenge, our power, our message, is to be able to lift the opportunities of all African Americans and Black people, and people of color, as we work to ensure that anyone who is denied equality has us, we, the collective body politics, as their champion. That is what tonight is about.
You will hear a number of descriptions of many persons, and you will hear the words of many of us from different parts of the country.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to kick-off this series of CBC Special Order Hours for the 117th Congress with my colleague Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) who will serve as co-Anchor.
Tonight, we will explore Honoring our 50 Year legacy Our Power, Our Message.
As chair of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security and a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and a member of the House Budget Committee, I clearly understand the importance of history and why we should take time to appreciate the path that has led us to this moment.
Four hundred years ago, ships set sail from the west coast of Africa and, in the process, began one of mankind's most inhumane practices: human bondage and slavery.
For two centuries, human beings--full of hopes and fears, dreams and concerns, ambition, and anguish--were transported onto ships like chattel, and the lives of many were forever changed.
The reverberations from this horrific series of acts--a transatlantic slave trade that touched the shores of a colony that came to be known as America, and later a democratic republic known as the United States of America--are unknown and worthy of exploration.
Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865.
The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 through 1865.
American Slavery is our country's Original Sin and its existence at the birth of our nation is a permanent scar on our country's founding documents, and on the venerated authors of those documents, and it is a legacy that continued well into the last century.
The framework for our country and the document to which we all take an oath describes African Americans as three-fifths a person.
The infamous Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued just a few decades later, described slaves as private property, unworthy of citizenship.
And, a civil war that produced the largest death toll of American fighters in any conflict in our history could not prevent the indignities of Jim Crow, the fire hose at lunch counters, and the systemic and institutional discrimination that would follow for a century after the end of the Civil War.
The mythology built around the Civil War has obscured our discussions of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American history and public policy.
While it is nearly impossible to determine how the lives touched by slavery could have flourished in the absence of bondage, we have certain datum that permits us to examine how a subset of Americans--
African Americans--have been affected by the callousness of involuntary servitude.
We know that in almost every segment of society--education, healthcare, jobs, and wealth--the inequities that persist in America are more acutely and disproportionately felt in Black America.
This historic discrimination continues: African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships including but not limited to having nearly 1,000,000 black people incarcerated; an unemployment rate more than twice the current white unemployment rate; and an average of less than 1/16 of the wealth of white families, a disparity which has worsened, not improved over time.
These conditions gave rise to a strong believe by Congressman Charlie Diggs that black members of Congress needed a way to make a difference by working together.
The idea for an organization of black elected Members of Congress came from Representative Charles Diggs (D-Mich.) who created the Democracy Select Committee (DSC) in an effort to bring black members of Congress together.
Diggs noticed that he and other African American members of Congress often felt isolated because there were very few of them in Congress, and he wanted to create a forum where they could discuss common political challenges and interests.
Diggs believed that ``The sooner we get organized for group action, the more effective we can become.''
The DSC was an informal group that held irregular meetings and had no independent staff or budget, but that changed a few years later.
As a result of court-ordered redistricting, one of several victories of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act joined by the force of the Civil Rights Movement, the number of African-American Members of Congress rose from nine to 13, the largest number since the end of the Civil War brought reconstruction that paved the way for voting rights for former slaves.
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was established in 1971 by the following 13 founding members:
1. Rep. Shirley A. Chisholm (D-N.Y.);
2. Rep. William L. Clay, Sr. (D-Mo.);
3. Rep. George W. Collins (D-Ill.);
4. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.);
5. Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.);
6. Rep. Charles C. Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.);
7. Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Calif.);
8. Rep. Ralph H. Metcalfe (D-Ill.);
9. Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.);
10. Rep. Robert N.C. Nix, Sr. (D-Pa.);
11. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.);
12. Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio); and
13. Del. Walter E. Fauntroy (D-D.C.).
Few recall that before these storied luminaries were elected to Congress, there were other African American Members of Congress immediately following the end of the Civil War who also served in this august body.
1. Robert Brown ELLIOTT 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75)
2. Jefferson Franklin LONG, 41st (1869-71)
3. Joseph Hayne RAINEY, 41st (1869-71), 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-
75), 44th (1875-77), 45th (1877-79)
4. Hiram Rhodes REVELS, 41st (1869-1871)
5. Robert Carlos DE LARGE 42nd (1871-1873)
6. Robert Brown ELLIOTT, 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75)
7. Benjamin Sterling TURNER, 42nd (1871-1873)
8. Josiah Thomas WALLS, 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75), 44th(1875-77)
9. Richard Harvey CAIN, 43rd (1873-75), 45th (1877-79)
10. John Roy LYNCH, 43rd (1873-75), 44th (1875-77), 47th (1881-83)
11. Alonzo Jacob RANSIER, 43rd (1873-75)
12. James Thomas RAPIER, 43rd (1873-75)
13. Blanche Kelso BRUCE, 44th (1875-77), 45th (1877-79), 46th (1879-
81)
14. Jeremiah HARALSON, 44th (1875-77)
15. HYMAN, John Adams 44th (1875-77)
16. Charles Edmund NASH, 44th (1875-77)
At the end of reconstruction, many of these Black members of Congress lost their office and many others who sought elected office or attempted to vote in public elections lost their lives.
It would take nearly another hundred years until a sufficient number of Federally elected black candidates would return to Congress.
But as too many African Americans know, in some ways, the civil war has never truly ended.
On January 6, 2021, we saw the raw, savage face of the lingering confederacy attempt to put a dagger into the heart of our democracy.
On that day, every belief expressed by this preamble to the Constitution of the United States was at risk of being lost to the hands of a wellcoordinated attack hidden within the ranks of a riotous, murderous mob that invaded and laid siege to U.S. Capitol during the constitutionally required but ministerial act of counting the ballots submitted by the presidential electors of each state and declaring publicly the persons who were by their ballots elected President and Vice-President of the United States.
We all knew the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election long before January 6, 2021 because of the transparency of each state's election administration and that the Joint Meeting of Congress would simply confirm that Joe Biden had won more than a majority of the electoral votes, along with winning the national popular vote by more than 7 million votes.
The riot came immediately after then-President Trump promoted a march on the Capitol and called his supporters to `stop the steal,' `never give up, never concede,' and to `fight like hell' during a speech that day, asserting that they would not `have a country anymore' if they did not act.
During the breach, Members of Congress were voting to certify then-
President-elect Joe Biden's election victory, and many participants in the attack intended to thwart this effort.
Violent participants, incited by the former President's rhetoric, injured scores of D.C. Police and U.S. Capitol Police officers--killing one, while four civilians also died.
The level of violence and passions demonstrated are out of character for a nation that is accustomed to the peaceful transfer of power, especially when the results were so clear--the President had been soundly defeated for reelection.
We did not appreciate how powerful a lie could be in the domain of social media where people can wall themselves off from alternative views and news.
A nation accustomed to the peaceful transfer of power from one presidency to another was unprepared for the enemy within; from a Chief Executive who would attempt to strike at the heart of lawful authority to destroy the union so that he could remain in office.
The underlying currents that led to the siege of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 began with the Compromise of 1876, which ended Reconstruction.
We must have an account of the crimes committed and the exacting of justice to those whose violent acts of rebellion against the authority of the United States resulted in the deaths of six Americans and the desecration and defilement of the Citadel of Democracy.
The injury done to the nation by white supremacists on January 6, 2021, can be linked to the harm they have done to this nation for well over 100 years beginning with the end of Reconstruction.
The withdrawal of Union troops from the defeated and seditious southern states in 1877 effectively put an end to Reconstruction and ushered in the era deconstruction of any efforts to normalize equal rights under law to former slaves.
This period of American history is obscured by time and characterized by a willful ignorance by governments, media, and academia, of the scale of murder mania that gripped the South during the period before Jim Crow de jure segregation, when the lines were being drawn in the blood of black people that outlined what black people would and would never be allowed to do in American society.
Before they were written into law, the `Black Codes' were shaped by a series of violent acts that occurred in communities large and small throughout the South, leading to tens of thousands of murders and attacks that maimed many because of arbitrary rules of social conduct such as a black man did not tip his hat, get off the sidewalk, spoke to a white person without first being spoken to, or other perceived slights.
The reign of terror visited upon former slaves and their communities began near the end of Reconstruction and resulted in a secret history of the United States that almost erased the gains made by former slaves during the period 1865-1876 that included over 1,500 elected offices held throughout the South.
There were former slaves elected to serve in the 41st and 42nd Congresses of the United States, most of whom were denied reelection to office once Jim Crow laws limited access to voting for former slaves.
It was unnatural for black communities to have gone silent in the body politic after the strides made by newly freed slaves in engaging in political discourse but that silence was caused by the tens of thousands of singular and mass murders and lynchings that occurred after the end of Reconstruction and continued well into the 20th Century.
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that killed hundreds of blacks is another example of what a mob stirred by racial amanous can do to African Americans who only crime was living a prosperous and economically independent American Dream.
African American history has a long, painful and bloody path that clearly exhibits how violent the Confederacy was, and we have fought a cold civil war for over 156 years, which today is on the verge of turning hot.
Evidence of the desperation of black people to escape the drudgery of the south is evident by the greatest self migration of people within the United States known as the Great Migration, which saw the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970.
The push to leave family and communities in the south was motivated by a deep desire to escape the yoke of the cold civil war; and the pull to go to other parts of the nation was a chance to live free of fear, which translated into black people who were allowed to pursue the American Dream.
This is why for millions of Americans it was shameful, painful and a disgrace that the Confederate battle flag was paraded in the Capitol of the United States by Trump's motley band of disloyalists, something that hundreds of thousands of true patriots gave the last full measure of devotion to prevent in the crucible years of the civil war from 1861 to 1865.
The lynchings, beatings, rapes, burnings, joined with roadblocks to advancements that would afford African American people basic human rights such as fair wages, food, shelter, education, economic opportunity, healthcare, due process and equal treatment under the law, were denied for much of our history.
The goals of this cold civil war were simple: it was to end or frustrate any effort by society to create a world where black people are free and have full rights as citizens of the United States.
The threat of a hot civil war comes from the majority of Americans accepting that African Americans have a place in America, and a right to pursue the American Dream.
The shift in American values and views regarding race have come very slowly with advances and setbacks until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 created space and time to reestablish voting rights for black voters that continues to be under threat.
In this latter respect, the Insurrection of January 6 sought to duplicate the Compromise of 1876 because in both cases adherents of white supremacy sought to retain and monopolize political power by disenfranchising and disempowering millions of black Americans, throughout the South in 1876 and in the urban centers of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia in 2020.
The threat of a hot civil war stems from the fear of white supremacists that a growing majority of Americans accept that African Americans have an equal right and entitlement to the blessings of liberty because they are full members of the American political community.
January 6, 2021, was not the first time that white supremacists attacked to overthrow duly elected white and black public officials. In 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina and again in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873, the election of diverse slates of statewide candidates to public office triggered violent white mobs to attack and murder newly elected officials.
The Colfax Massacre, sometimes referred to euphemistically as the Colfax Riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the seat of Grant Parish, where between 62 and 153 black men were murdered by racist white vigilantes calling themselves a militia.
Three white men also died in the confrontation, with at least one said to have been shot by his own ally.
In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, a group of white Democrats armed with rifles and a small cannon, overpowered Republican freedmen and black state militia occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax.
Most of the freedmen were murdered after they surrendered; nearly 50 were killed later that night after being held prisoners for several hours.
Estimates of the number of dead have varied, ranging from 62 to 153. The exact number of black victims was difficult to determine because many bodies were thrown into the Red River or mass gravesites.
Reconstruction ended in 1877 and by 1898 the protection afforded newly freed slaves to participate as equal citizens in casting ballots in public elections that allowed for the election of black and white candidates ceased to exist.
White supremacists who ran as candidates in 1898, but lost their elections used mob violence to take the offices from the duly elected officials, sparking the Wilmington insurrection, also known as the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Coup of 1898.
The similarities between what happened on January 6, and the events of 1898 are striking in that both featured a mass riot and insurrection carried out by white supremacists.
The mass riot carried out by white supremacists on January 6, 2021, sought to overturn an election where black voters played a significant role in electing Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President of the United States.
Furthermore, to add injury to their racist sensibilities, the preceding day, January 5, 2021, the state of Georgia elected its first African American and Jewish U.S. Senators during a special election.
Today, we see the potential for the 1898 level of violence against the entire Congress, which has become the most diverse deliberative body in our nation's history.
Since the attack, the FBI has identified more than 400 individuals out of an estimated 800 who illegally entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021. As of January 27, 2021, the FBI's Washington Field Office has confirmed that more than 150 criminal cases against those individuals have been filed.
Although some reporting initially contradicted Justice Department officials' public statements regarding aggressive efforts to charge all those involved in the criminal activity, acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin reaffirmed the Department's commitment on January 26, 2021, stating ``[r]egardless of the level of criminal conduct, we're not selectively targeting or just trying to charge the most significant crime . . . [i]f a crime was committed we are charging you, whether you were outside or inside the Capitol.''
The long and blood history of white supremacy requires an approach that holds individuals accountable for their actions as a means of ending the lure of the mob as a tool of violence against targets of interest.
Reports that cite that over a hundred current or former members of the military were involved in the riot at the Capitol are shocking to some.
Unfortunately, this aspect of white supremacist violence was evident by violence committed by Proud Boys and Boogaloo adherents made clear their objectives.
My efforts to focus the attention of the military on this link was evident in an amendment I offered to the NDAA for FY2021 that was adopted.
This Jackson Lee Amendment included in the House version of the NOAA directed the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress the extent, if any, of the threat to national security posed by domestic terrorist groups and organizations motivated by a belief system of white supremacy, such as the Boogaloo and Proud Boys extremists is reflected in the Conference bill.
The NDAA conference identified that the FBI is under statutory obligation, established by Section 5602 of the NDAA FY 2020 (Public Law 116-92), to complete a report that would better characterize the domestic terrorist threat by requiring the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), to produce a set of comprehensive reports over 5 years.
The report is to include: a strategic intelligence threat internal to the United States; metrics on the number and type of incidents, coupled with resulting investigations, arrests, prosecutions and analytic products, copies of the execution of domestic terrorism investigations; detailed explanations of how the FBI, DHS and NCTC prioritize the domestic terrorism threats and incident; and descriptions regarding the type and regularity of training provided by the FBI, DHS, or NCTC to other Federal, State and local law enforcement.
The conferees noted that the report has not been delivered to the appropriate committees, and they urged the FBI Director to deliver the report without delay.
The Jackson Lee Amendment to the NDAA FY 2021 sought the same information that is required under the NDAA FY 2020 because of the threat posed by accelerationists and militia extremists who comprise a range of violent anti-government actors, movements and organizations, some of which branch out of decades-old ideologies and others of which are relatively new has led to violent engagement of law enforcement.
My concern is that in the aftermath of a historic national election, the activity of violence influencers like Boogaloo Boys or Proud Boys will increase and lead to attacks becoming more frequent.
In 2018, we saw too many instances of violent extremists searching for opportunities to sow violence and disrupt democratic processes.
Boogaloo and Proud Boys are targeting constitutionally protected activity for cooption or to provide cover for attacks.
honoring our 50-year legacy: our power, our message
List of Unfinished Business in the 117th Congress:
The work of the 117th Congress is just begun, but the list of unfinished business is long:
Ending the COVID-19 by Ending Healthcare Disparities;
Passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act;
Criminal Justice Reform;
Funding to complete the restoration of a safe drinking water system for Flint, Michigan;
Enactment of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act;
Immigration Reform.
The United States is a work in progress, as stated in the preamble to the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.
African Americans have fought in every war this nation has faced knowing that they were not afforded the same rights and freedoms of white Americans.
We comprise thirteen percent of the population of the United States, and yet experience a higher rate of incarceration, health disparities, more vulnerable to economic slowdowns, and even more likely to get COVID-19 and have much worse health outcomes.
Disparities tell the story of living while black in America.
Disparities in maternity mortality, in the care we receive from doctors when we are in pain caused by Sickle Cell anemia, or present with serious symptoms like Ebola as was the case with Thomas Eric Duncan who went to a Dallas Area hospital for treatment.
Disparities in the spread of COVID-19 are killing Black people at a much higher rate than our percentage of the population in states reporting demographic data.
Since that time, we have seen a pandemic sweep the country, taking more than 500,000 souls in its wake and devastating the African American community.
According to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one and a half times higher than that of white people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease.
Interestingly, a recent peer-reviewed study from Harvard Medical School suggests that reparations for African Americans could have cut COVID-19 transmission and infection rates both among Blacks and the population at large.
Their analysis, based on Louisiana data, determined that if reparations payments had been made before the COVID-19 pandemic, narrowing the wealth gap, COVID-19 transmission rates in the state's overall population could have been reduced by anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent.
I include in the Record an article detailing the results of a Harvard Study that found that reparations for slavery could have reduced COVID-
19 infections and deaths in US from between 31-68 percent.
There are disparities in every aspect of African American life and death.
Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million.
Today, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the world's population and has 21 percent of the world's prisoners.
1 in every 37 adults in the United States, or 2.7 percent of the adult population, is under some form of correctional supervision.
In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent of the total 6.8 million correctional population.
African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.
The imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of white women.
Nationwide, African American children represent 32 percent of children who are arrested,
42 percent of children who are detained, and 52 percent of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court.
Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015.
In African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent.
We will have special orders throughout this Congress that can delve more deeply in the aspect of live in America through discussions on H.R. 40.
In 1989, Congressman John Conyers introduced ``The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, which later became known as H.R. 40, in remembrance of the Gen. Sherman's 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 to redistribute 400,000 acres of formerly Confederate owned coastal land in South Carolina and Florida, subdivided into 40 acre plots.
In 2019, I reintroduced an updated H.R. 40 entitled ``Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,'' noting that in the 30 years since the bill's original introduction, sufficient evidence has been assembled to not just study but also develop proposals for a remedy.
H.R. 40 allows for the first constructive scholarly conversation on race that is clearly needed in the U.S. today and the ability to take a moment in 250 years for a full discussion or analysis of economic, political, psychological, scientific, and sociological effects of slavery in the U.S. It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery in the U.S. and establishes a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African Americans. The Commission is also charged to make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies.
H.R. 40 follows the successful model of the reparations campaign for Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. The campaign began with a 1980 congressional bill establishing a commission to investigate the internment, evaluate and consider the amount and form reparations would take, and make recommendations to the Congress for remedy. Based on the Commission's findings, President Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The bill formally apologized to Japanese-
Americans, authorized the payment of $20,000 to each Japanese-American detention camp survivor; instituted a trust fund to educate Americans about the suffering of the Japanese-Americans; and issued pardons to all those who resisted detention camp internment.
The nation over the last twelve months has faced a crucible of suffering, death, and disease that has taken too many lives, devastated the economy, and put millions at risk of greater hardship due to the death of a loved one, unemployment, loss of health care or forgone education opportunities.
Hidden in these numbers are the health disparities that have plagued African Americans for generations.
Today, with a heavy heart our nation sadly marks the loss of 500,000 American lives to the coronavirus: an unimaginable human toll in our modern era of medical and technological advances. These deaths are of staggering proportions and cause incomprehensible sadness, but we cannot think of them as the end of COVID-19. As we have learned COVID-
19 can surge again claiming even more lives. This is why we cannot be complacent or accepting of so much death without continuing to fight.
Every life lost is a profound tragedy and earth-shattering moment in the lives of families, neighborhoods, and communities that touch each of us in countless ways as we mourn and console our family members, coworkers, neighbors and friends.
Today, I joined my colleagues of the House to observe a moment a silence on the steps of the Capitol for the 500,000 lives lost. Members of Congress joined Americans in prayer for the lives lost or devastated by this vicious virus. As we pray, we must commit ourselves, in memory of those we have lost, to wearing face coverings, observing social distance, washing of hands-and most importantly getting the vaccine when it is our time to do so as a pledge to all who have been taken from us far too soon that we will act swiftly to put an end to this pandemic and to stem the suffering felt by so many.
My commitment is to save lives and also livelihoods through public and personal action. As Texans work to overcome the tragic winter disaster that befell the state last week, I wrote to President Biden asking that he grant the state's request for a Presidential Disaster Declaration, which he did and today FEMA is on the ground providing water delivery, food distribution, and other vital services to help Texans get back on their feet.
I also encourage those who have lost health insurance during the economic crisis created by COVID-19 pandemic to take advantage of the extended enrollment period for getting health insurance through healthcare.gov, which is open until May 15, 2021. Currently, 36 states are using HealthCare.gov. Since President Biden announced the creation of the Special Enrollment Period for HealthCare.gov, all 14 states and D.C. that have their own state-based marketplaces have announced that they would also have Special Enrollment Periods.
Questions about how justice is served to different communities in our nation came into stark focus with the horrifying killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer, which shocked and awakened the moral consciousness of the nation.
Untold millions have seen the terrifying last 8 minutes and 46 seconds of life drained from a black man, George Floyd, taking his last breaths face down in the street with his neck under the knee of a police officer who, along with his three cohorts, was indifferent to his cries for help and pleas that he ``can't breathe.''
In direct response, civil protests against police brutality occurred in cities large and small all across the nation.
It is clear that the times that we find ourselves in demand action, and that is precisely what my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, on the House Judiciary Committee, and Congressional Democrats did by introducing H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 in the 116th Congress.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act will be reintroduced this Congress to complete the work this nation has already begun in bringing justice to the criminal justice system.
And every day, we use our power and our message to lift up these important issues that are facing our nation, and we ask those who are listening and watching to make these efforts your own.
Criminal Justice Reform is a pressing issue that Congress must address.
As Judge Learned Hand observed, ``If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.''
Reforming the criminal justice system so that it is fairer and delivers equal justice to all persons is one of the great moral imperatives of our time.
For reform to be truly meaningful, we must look at every stage at which our citizens interact with the system--from policing in our communities and the first encounter with law enforcement, to the charging and manner of attaining a conviction, from the sentence imposed to reentry and collateral consequences.
House Democrats, led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler and myself, as Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, have accepted and embraced the challenge of reforming the criminal justice system and developed many innovative legislative remedies to correct many of the most glaring inequities and racial disparities in the most critical areas of the system.
This is an important topic and one that Congress must turn its attention to with urgency and unity of effort to:
address the harms caused;
get an accounting of what happened;
understand how the water was poisoned;
make the lives of people damaged by this tragedy whole;
find justice for those lives that may have been lost; and
determine and provide for the long-term health needs of those impacted.
Today, the water in Flint, Michigan is not safe to drink and we have no concrete answer on when it may be safe to drink in the future.
Flint, Michigan like so many communities across the nation really felt the brunt of the financial crisis created by the abuse of new home lending practices and deceptive investment schemes that hid the weaknesses in the economy until the great recession spread across the nation beginning in late 2008.
The financial damage done to communities like Flint in the form of steep declines in property values, which caused significant declines in property tax income.
This was not just Flint's problem, but a national reality--for financially strapped cities, towns, school boards, and municipal governments who rely on Congress to fund all 12 Congressional appropriations bills to provide them with much needed revenue to meet the needs of their citizens.
In the 51 years since its passage on August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act has safeguarded the right of Americans to vote and stood as an obstacle to many of the more egregious attempts by certain states and local jurisdictions to game the system by passing discriminatory changes to their election laws or administrative policies.
In signing the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said:
``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.''
But on June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b) of the VRA, and paralyzed the application of the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirements, which protect minority voting rights where voter discrimination has historically been the worst. Since 1982, Section 5 has stopped more than 1,000 discriminatory voting changes in their tracks, including 107 discriminatory changes in Texas.
Although much progress has been made with regard to Civil Rights, there is still much work to be done in order to prevent systemic voter suppression and discrimination within our communities, and we must remain ever vigilant and oppose schemes that will abridge or dilute the precious right to vote.
H.R. 885, `VOTING RIGHTS AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2015,' of which I am an original co-sponsor, repairs the damage done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court decision and is capable of winning majorities in the House and Senate and the signature of the President.
This legislation replaces the old `static' coverage formula with a new dynamic coverage formula, or `rolling trigger,' which effectively gives the legislation nationwide reach because any state and any jurisdiction in any state potentially is subject to being covered if the requisite number of violations are found to have been committed.
For millions of Americans, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is sacred treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish extraordinary things.
I want to thank my colleagues, Chairwoman Beatty of the CBC, and my co-Anchor, Representative Torres, for participating in this Special Order on these important topics.
[From the Harvard Civil Rights--Civil Liberties Law Review, June 10,
2020]
Why We Can't Wait
(By Mo Light)
In May 1920, Henry Scott, a middle-aged Negro, was working as a Pullman porter in Florida when a mob seized and lynched him because a white woman said he insulted her.[1] Scott said that she had asked for his help arranging her seat on a train while he was busy arranging another woman's seat. He asked her to wait. The white woman called the police and told them that Scott had insulted her. From there the story followed the usual lynching pattern: A deputy sheriff arrested Scott and then a white mob ``overpowered'' the deputy sheriff and took Scott from police custody. The mob then riddled Scott with ``forty or fifty bullets.''[2] The jury returned the typical verdict: not guilty.[3]
Recently, another middle-aged Black man was working when he was seized and lynched. George Floyd was lynched by police officers after a store employee accused him of buying cigarettes with counterfeit money. He protested to the store employee that this was not true. But the teenage employee refused to believe him and proceeded to call the police. From there the story followed the all-too-common policing pattern: Police officers who swore an oath to serve and protect lynched a Black man while their colleagues stood by in silence.
Two stories, one hundred years apart. In this time, America has shot forward scientifically and technologically. America put a man on the moon, found vaccines and cures for deadly diseases, invented the computer, and revolutionized technology. But throughout this time, America has left Black Americans behind in the shadows. For Black Americans, too little has changed in the last sixty or so years. They are still dreaming that one day they will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, all while living through a constant nightmare. Henry Scott is George Floyd and George Floyd is Henry Scott. And that is why we can't wait.
Black Americans have been and will continue to be severely disappointed with the slow pace of change. Before the Civil War, Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, Frederick Douglass, and many other Negro abolitionists and leaders were told to wait. After Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, slaves still toiled the fields through at least 1865.[4]
The government promised the Negro ``forty acres and a mule'' but instead gave the Negro ``separate but equal.''[5] The Negro knew that in 1954 the Supreme Court called for the desegregation of schools ``with all deliberate speed'' but was met with all deliberate delay.[7] The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has all but failed to live up to its potential.[7] In 2020, police officers are still disproportionality killing Black people.[8] If we respond to this oppression with the same methods we have used in the past, we will sing the same chants, march through the same streets, and demand the same justice in 20, 40, 60 years. For over 100 years we have heard
``change will come.'' Words that consistently ring hallow. The People must do everything they can to prevent another innocent person from dying at the hands of the police or white supremacists.
The idea that the People must engage radical methods of change, change that accepts all action except violence as legitimate, has generated a great deal of apprehension to many Americans. But lest we forget our history, one should be reminded that America's birth and continued existence is a never-ending dance with radicalness and extremism. Ideas that were once shunned as too radical are now lauded as examples for others. Was not Patrick Henry an extremist: ``Give me liberty or give me death.''[9] Was not the Declaration of Independence radical when it stated that it is ``the Right of the People to alter or abolish'' the government if it became destructive to equality.[10] Our Founding Fathers listed in the Declaration the King of England's crimes that spurred and legitimatized the American Revolution--including the Crown's
``protect[ion] of [his soldiers], by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.''[11] Was it not Thomas Jefferson who wrote to William Smith and said, ``what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?''[12] Was not Abraham Lincoln called radical when he said, ``I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.''[13] And was not Dr. King considered one of the most radical and most hated men in America?[14] History has been kind to these men and so, too, will history be kind to us.
Black Americans and their allies can't wait for perfect adherence from their movement on how one should engage in radical change. ``No revolution is executed like a ballet[,]'' said Dr. King, ``[i]ts steps and gestures are not neatly designed and precisely performed.''[15] There will be violent elements in every revolution, but the majority of those revolting are doing so nonviolently. And more importantly, the oppressor is responsible for the violence of the oppressed. The oppressor is responsible for the American Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement. The Revolutions of 1848 were formed by ad hoc groups of the middle-class, workers, and commoners. They did not act with perfect discipline, but we nonetheless celebrate those radicals' tenacity and vision.[16]
The necessity of Black Americans and their allies forming a movement for radical change is difficult for many to swallow. It is difficult because too many Americans do not understand the centrality of radical change to American history. They sit in the shade of trees they did not plant, warm themselves by fires they did not light, and drink from wells they did not dig.[17] They profit from persons they do not know, and they build upon foundations that they did not lay.[18] But Black Americans know this difficult truth: radical change is the only acceptable change. They are keenly aware that their struggle for equality and justice is a never-ending battle. Black Americans are resentful because after all these years they must constantly push for change or be pushed back into the shadows. Black Americans are the seeds that go unwatered and still rise. The soil not toiled but still fertile. You can't ask us to be patient with change anymore or to play by your rules because Black Americans have been patient from John Castor to Henry Scott to George Floyd to ---- .
[1] Ralph Ginzburg, 100 Years of Lynching 130-31 (1962).
[2]Id.
[3]Id.
[4] Shennette Garrett-Scott et al., ``When Peace Come'': Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth, 76 Black History Bulletin 1, 19-23 (2013).
[5] Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 552 (1896).
[6] Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait 3 (1963).
[7] See Shelby Cty., Ala. v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
[8] See Deidre McPhillips, Deaths From Police Harm Disproportionately Affect People of Color, U.S. News & World Report (June 3, 2020) https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/
2020-o6-o3/data-show-deaths-from-police-violence-
disproportionately-affect-people-of-color.
[9] William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry 123 (1817).
[10] The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).
[11] Id.
[12] Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Smith (Nov. 13, 1787), in Quotes by and about Thomas Jefferson (1998).
[13] Abraham Lincoln, A House Divided Speech at Springfield, Illinois (June 16, 1858).
[14] Tavis Smiley, The One Single Thing Donald Trump and Martin Luther King, Jr. Have in Common, Time (Dec. 1, 2017, 11:09 AM), https://time.com/5042070/donald-trump-martin-
luther-king-mlk/.
[15] King, supra note 6, at 140.
[16] See Melvin Kranzberg, 1848: A Turning Point? xii, xvii-xviii (1962).
[17] See Deuteronomy 6:10-12 (King James) (adapted by Rev. Dr. Peter S. Raible).
[18] Id.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres).
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to rise to celebrate the 50th anniversary of an institution like no other, the Congressional Black Caucus.
I am honored to be in the presence of fierce and formidable public servants like the CBC chair, Joyce Beatty, and today's anchor, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
Madam Speaker, I thank her for those inspiring words. I thank her for reminding us of the long and rich history of the CBC, a history that continues to inspire us all.
Madam Speaker, I am also honored to be here in the presence of my brother, Mondaire Jones. You know, in the history of the United States Congress there have only been about 163 Black Members of Congress, and none of them were openly LGBTQ until the election of Mondaire Jones and myself. So I am proud to join my brother in making history in the 117th Congress.
You know, before I was Congressman Ritchie Torres, before I was Councilman Ritchie Torres, I am and will always be the son of the most powerful woman I know, Debra Bosolet, my mother. And the most important lesson that my mother taught me is never forget where you come from. Never forget where your roots lie. And my roots are in the Bronx. Even when I leave the Bronx for Washington, D.C., the Bronx never leaves me.
I was born, bred, and battle-tested in the boogie down Bronx. And I have the high honor of representing New York's 15, the south Bronx, which for too long has been ground zero for racially concentrated poverty. The unemployment rate in the south Bronx could be as high as 25 percent, comparable to the joblessness of the Great Depression.
More than half the residents in the Bronx pay more than half their income toward their rent, and that is before you factor in the cost of prescription drugs and utilities, and food, and all the bare necessities of life. And even though the south Bronx has long been known to be the poorest congressional district in America, COVID-19 has shown the south Bronx to be the essential congressional district.
It is the home of essential workers who put their lives at risk during the peak of the pandemic so that most of us could safely shelter in place. And our mission, as the CBC, should be to give those essential workers, who are overwhelmingly women of color, a fighting chance at a decent and dignified life.
You know, I never thought as a poor kid of color from the Bronx that I would embark on a journey that would take me from public housing in the Bronx to the people's House in Washington, D.C. And I never thought that as a Congress Member I would live through an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol.
Now, on January 6, we were reminded that there are two competing realities that define America. There is the reality of multiracial democracy. America is slowly emerging as a multiracial, multiethnic, LGBTQ-inclusive democracy. Seventy percent of the Democratic Caucus consists of people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ Caucus.
But then there is the reality of white supremacy, which reared its ugly head on January 6. And, for me, the scene on the U.S. Capitol was not simply an attack on a physical structure, it was an attack on the very idea of America as a multiracial democracy. And it is that vision of America that, we, as the CBC, are charged with defending.
And despite the overwhelming shock and despair that I felt on January 6, Madam Speaker, I have hope. The inauguration was reason for hope. The image of Kamala Harris, a Black woman in the Vice-Presidency, being sworn in by Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court, is a powerful encapsulation of how far we have come, of how much we have achieved. And that moment reminds us that the future of our country does not belong to white supremacy. The future of our country belongs to multiracial democracy.
And the Congressional Black Caucus will continue to be at the forefront of making America the more perfect multiracial union that it ought to be. In the words of the CBC chair: Our Power, Our Message.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentleman very much for his powerful words and his very prominent focus on the idea that you are from the Bronx, but the spirit of the Bronx cannot be taken from you, and that your commitment and your assessment of this country will be defined in your way, not in the way of white supremacists, domestic terrorists, or insurrectionists.
Madam Speaker, I think more than ever he has captured an important moment by saying he has hope, and that is what the Congressional Black Caucus represents for the millions of Americans that we represent. He is right, our constituency is multicultural, they come from many different perspectives, they are Black, they are African American--as they may be desired to be called--they are Latinx, they are Hispanic, they are Anglo, they are White, they are Southeast Asian, they are Asian Pacific, they are LGBTQ, and they are varied. That is what we are here today to stand for.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, among other committees, and a scholar in his own right, a lawyer, and someone who has been able to be trained in the ways of the law, but whose heart is vested in the ways of justice. I am delighted to yield to my colleague for his time on the floor in this wonderful momentous occasion.
Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished co-chair of this incredible Special Order sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus for those very kind words.
I will say, as someone who has spent most of his life following the work of this Black Caucus, it is an honor to finally join the legends, the luminaries who helped to inspire my own run for the United States Congress. Thank you.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the CBC for holding this hour to reflect on Black history. I want to share, in particular, the story of a young lawyer who came to the village of Hillburn in Rockland County, New York, during his fight to desegregate our public schools.
{time} 2100
Like many places in 1943, the Village of Hillburn had a main school for White children. It was called the Hillburn School. And it had a school for children of color without a library, a playground, or indoor plumbing. That was called the Brook School.
But our elders did not accept this. They fought back. Parents of the Brook School children organized and, with the help of a young attorney with the NAACP's legal defense fund, they sued the district. With the help of their lawyer, the parents of the Brook School children won their fight against segregation in a case that helped to lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education 11 years later.
Who was this young lawyer who came to the Village of Hillburn?
He was the man who would later become our Nation's first Supreme Court Justice who was Black: Thurgood Marshall.
I am moved by the story because it shows how Black history creates Black futures, how the courage and resistance of the Black leaders of years past are the reason a poor Black kid from Rockland County now stands in this special Chamber as the United States Congress Member representing that same school district today.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Jones so very much for that powerful statement. A powerful statement, obviously, a lawyer's lawyer to bring to our attention the great leadership of Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall, from a lawyer whom we know will continue to promote justice now as a legislator.
Madam Speaker, I want to take a moment to just put in the Record really the historical description of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Since its establishment in 1971, the Congressional Black Caucus has been committed to using the full constitutional power, statutory authority, and financial resources of the Federal Government to ensure that Black Americans and other marginalized communities in the United States have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
As part of this commitment, the CBC has fought in the past 50 years to empower citizens and address their legislative concerns by nursing a policy agenda that is inclusive, pragmatic, effective, and resonates with the American people.
Just for a moment, I would like to comment on the dangerous interrelatedness of race and the insurrectionist day of January 6.
We are on the floor because we have a unique history. We are a multiranged people and a multicultural people. We are individuals whose heritage is intertwined with other backgrounds. We are African Americans. We are Caribbean Americans. And in terms of African Americans, we are Caribbean Blacks, if you will. We come from all over the world, but we come to America and we are described by a singular history.
And if we have come with a singular history, I think it is important to intertwine what happened on January 6. Shockingly, Madam Speaker, those who came to object--so they say--to the duly qualified and legitimate election of President Joe Biden and, of course, Vice President Harris, they, of course, came allegedly with that proposition. But, at the same time, I am stunned by the words of a police officer by the name of Mr. Harry Dunn--courageous and brave with so many others--who indicated: The rioters called me the n-word dozens of times.
So here we are 50 years celebrating the Congressional Black Caucus. Here we are defenders of democracy. Many of our Members are former members of the United States military, having gone into battle, or our family members have. Many fell in as early a war as World War I, World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and other wars in between. We shed our blood for this country.
And the so-called people who came and said they just wanted some democracy, they believed that their candidate won, but they took enough time to call the sons and daughters of enslaved Africans, who wear the uniform defending democracy, the n-word.
They took time to carry a fake flag, calling it the Confederate flag when it is a symbol in the 1960s of the harshness and brutality of segregation and the Klan. They took time to bring that flag to the United States Congress, in the midst of the highest number of elected persons of color, persons who are descendants in many different ways of enslaved Africans.
But here I wanted to mention Mr. Dunn's name. There were many others who were beaten that day. I honor them, and we will honor them as time goes. This night, tonight, we mention this gentleman who said most powerfully--Harry Dunn recalled the sickening events of January 6--when he says that the level of racist abuse he suffered caused him to break down in tears, but he was not broken. His quote was: ``Y'all failed.''
That is my message today. All of the brutality that we may have experienced, which I will talk about in a moment, all of it failed. That is why we are here today fighting in the Education and Labor Committee; fighting in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee; fighting in the Ways and Means Committee; fighting in the Energy and Commerce Committee; the Judiciary; the Interior; the Armed Services Committee; the Oversight and Reform Committee; and the Budget Committee, where you will see our presence.
We are fighting for America, but we are the conscience that drives the reality that there are more people to be concerned about than those of us in this Chamber. That there are mothers and father who work every day, who don't see the fruit of their labor. There are children who clamor for education, but it is not there.
There are soldiers who need to have the line of hierarchy and the route to promotion and elevation, who don't get it. There are businesspersons who have brilliant ideas, but can't access the capital. There are incarcerated persons who are not guilty, but are still incarcerated.
There are doors of college institutions closed. There are people who want to do better with a new house, but still, in the 21st century, are redlined. And there are many who want to go places and cannot go, who are African American.
No, we are not complaining. We are trying to explain how much has been done by people who have had this kind of history. It is important to take note of that.
Madam Speaker, may I have the time remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Texas has 24 minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), if he will carry forth.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, as always, for the inspiration of words.
Our colleague, Congressman Jones, spoke earlier of Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education was the first legal case I ever read. In high school, I participated in a form of legal debate known as moot court, which taught me how to think, read, write, and speak critically and artfully. I will never forget after reading Brown v. Board of Education how inspired I felt, those words in the field of education: Separate but equal is inherently unequal.
Those words inspired me to see myself--as a young Black man--as a public servant and maybe one day as a Member of the United States Congress.
But I have to be honest. If you had said to me 1 year ago that I would become a Member of Congress during an infectious disease outbreak, that I would witness an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol during the electoral college vote count, and that I would then vote to impeach an outgoing President who had been impeached once before, I would have said that sounds a lot like a movie.
So this has been the most draining and disorienting beginning for any freshman class in the modern history of the United States Congress, but I am nevertheless honored to be here.
January 6 is a reminder that the mission of the CBC takes on a renewed urgency. The Congress Member and I sit on the Homeland Security Committee, and one of our highest priorities is going to be counterterrorism. During one of our recent hearings, I made the observation that America has a pattern of willful blindness toward white supremacist extremism as a form of domestic terror.
Even though the statistics have been clear that white supremacist extremism has been the dominant driver of violence in the United States for decades, the U.S. Government did not designate a white supremacist group as a terrorist organization until 2020. 2020. Never mind the massacre against African Americans, against Latinos, and against members of the LGBTQ community. It took the Federal Government until 2020 to finally recognize white supremacy as a form of domestic terrorism.
I am often asked: Whom do you admire in history?
The gentlewoman brought up the Underground Railroad, and I am a great admirer of Harriet Tubman, who, as the architect of the Underground Railroad, is America's Moses. She was a genuine liberator of an enslaved people.
I also have deep admiration for Ida B. Wells, who was alone as a journalist in standing up to the campaign of domestic terrorism and lynchings against African Americans. And we have to draw from the legacy of Ida B. Wells and renew our commitment to fighting domestic terrorism in our own time.
Madam Speaker, I look forward to joining the gentlewoman in that fight and learning from her.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, my coanchor has very powerfully captured the many heroes in our community, historical heroes as well, and heroes who pushed against the edge, walked right up to the line, never failed to be courageous, never failed to work on behalf of people who were voiceless and powerless.
Harriet Tubman was that woman. She was General Moses, and she told slaves that it was not going to be their task to stop along the railroad, they were going to get to their destination--and I guess she was a little harsh--dead or alive.
That is the push of the Congressional Black Caucus. We are not violent people, so I won't say dead or alive. But we are consistently engaged in pushing the envelope, pushing the margins, and pushing the conscience of this Congress led certainly over a huge number of years by the late John Robert Lewis and John Conyers, who headed the Judiciary Committee and fought against every civil rights injustice.
So many leaders. As I indicated, Shirley Chisholm, who ran for the Presidency. And Barbara Jordan, who sat on the impeachment committee as a young Member and said, We, the People. She denied any right of anyone to undermine the Constitution.
{time} 2115
Her voice was strong and powerful. I am glad to call her my mentor and my predecessor.
And so I just want to give these words. I want to capture some words here on that insurrection.
Everyone knew the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election long before January 6, 2021. We also knew that the States had gone to a lot of traversing, even they were sued, and they still came back as each State leader said, no fraud: This is the outcome.
Because of the transparency of each State's election administration and that of the joint meeting of Congress, it would simply confirm that Joe Biden had won more than a majority of the electoral votes along with winning the national popular vote by more than seven million votes.
We all know that this was a historic election; more votes than we had ever counted, I believe, in the history of the United States. There was such a sense of exhilaration because democracy was alive. There were so many young people that voted. So many people of the potpourri of America, all backgrounds.
We felt so good about voting together, many of us voting the same way for the same candidate, as evidenced by his victory. States that we had lost 4 years ago, enthusiastically voting for change, for goodness, for a spirit of unity. We knew something was on the horizon.
But isn't it interesting that after that election, for months, people had been told a complete lie, which allowed them to stay in places that we did not know and conspire to come and attack this place, this holy place, this place of democracy, this place that has, Madam Speaker, above you, In God We Trust.
They attacked this place and the riot came immediately after then-
President Trump promoted a march on the Capitol and called his supporters to stop the steal; never give up; never concede, and to fight like hell, during a speech that day, asserting that they would not have a country anymore if they did not act.
I read these into our message of our power hour message, 50 years of the Congressional Black Caucus, because I think history will tell. Reading the annals of the Congressional Record, you will see that members of the Congressional Black Caucus, when they were tiny, until we have expanded, have consistently gone to the floor on questions of justice and expanding opportunity and ensuring that justice is a respecter of color or age or region. We fight for justice no matter what the color of your skin, what your background is.
We are purists as it relates to justice. We love the Constitution, because--even though we were three-fifths of a person, we were not a human being when it was finalized--it was a document that grew and continues to breathe rights, from the First Amendment to the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, to the right for women to vote, to the amendments that deal with a right to a trial by jury, to the Fifth Amendment, due process, and the protection of your property. These are all breathing documents and words, breathing amendments that have allowed a people who were in bondage to scrap their way out of the devastation of hatred. We use this Constitution.
But shamefully, that fight has to continue. And on January 6, that fight, that scab was torn off again. That rug was burning again. Those who came to say that they were fighting for Trump and fighting to overturn the election, but more importantly, they are fighting because the election was theirs, they called a Black officer the N word more times than he can remember, caused him to break down, among others. And he had the courage to say, all that they tried to do failed.
Let me just show these depictions of our journey. I will start with this one. This year, 2021, is the 100th anniversary--I hate to even use that term--of the Tulsa riot. Allegedly, a young Black man in an elevator was alleged to have touched a White woman. I think when he finally got out of the elevator it was alleged rape, or it was rape, a typical story, over and over again.
That is why we have such pain for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Pamela Turner, Sandra Bland, Jacob Blake, and Elijah McClain in Colorado, and names beyond, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, the mothers who have become friends, Michael Brown, that is why we have such pain.
And I guess my constituent--the family that has become America's family, along with all the other mothers and fathers--George Floyd grew up in Houston, Texas, in the Cuney Homes, public housing. His mother was the queen of public housing, took in children, fed children. They felt like they were at home in the Floyd family.
Big George is what he was called. Big man. Took his brothers and sisters under his wing. George Floyd played basketball--my recollection is--in China with Yao Ming when they were young players, not pros. We never know who someone is.
So this is the 100th anniversary of probably some of the likes of those names that I called. Life cut down.
And this depiction is Captured Negroes on way to Convention Hall during the Tulsa race riot. They were captured. There was no justice. 300 Negroes, Black Americans were buried in an unmarked grave, as we are told. This is how it was. This is how it was. This is how it was.
The Congressional Black Caucus will be commemorating that this year. And I will introduce legislation with Senator Warren, on the Tulsa race riots next week.
4,000, 4,000-plus Blacks were hung. And as you can see, there were smiling faces in the crowd. It was entertainment. Come to the town square.
No, this is not a depiction of some dastardly person who did violent acts and raided through the community. This could have been someone walking along a dark road. It could have been the three boys in Mississippi during the civil rights movement; they were just driving, trying to get to their destination.
These folks could have been walking. We had one woman who had a dispute with a storekeeper. She was a businesswoman. She was ultimately hung; never came back home. The family was looking for where she might be.
It looks like another celebratory occasion, hanging. We will hear more of this when we proceed to discuss our commission to study and develop reparation proposals.
But let me--before I yield to my good friend and co-anchor, I just want you to see this one. This gentleman's name was--I am going to call him Mr. Gordon. He is a slave--was a slave, deceased. And clearly, those are markings of a very bad beating. But that is not the end of his story.
This gentleman came out of slavery and fought in the Civil War on behalf of the Union. This is what we did. We always rise to the occasion.
You will hear more about our story. But I wanted to make sure that we just got a sense of how we have been overcomers. But even with being overcomers, we know there is more to do.
Madam Speaker, I am very delighted to be able to yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Williams), and she is, in her own right, a leader, a new member of this body, has civil rights in her blood, she is a mother, and she is here ready to fight for our children's education and she will succeed.
Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, today my Congressional Black Caucus colleagues and I observe Black History Month and celebrate 50 years of Our Power, Our Message.
For 50 years, the Congressional Black Caucus has uplifted the voices of Black people and other marginalized communities so that they can share in the promise of America for all.
For the 117th Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus marks a new milestone with 58 members, the largest membership in CBC history. The next 50 years of Our Power, Our Message is strong.
We are here in D.C. witnessing more Black history being made with the first Black woman, HBCU grad, our soror, and a member of our Congressional Black Caucus serving as Vice President of the United States. Indeed, our power and our message are strong.
While we continue to make great strides, it is not lost on me that 2020 was a difficult year for Black people across this country. Collectively, we battled a pandemic that continues to infect and kill Black people at disproportionate rates.
In my home State of Georgia, Black people are also experiencing some of the highest levels of unemployment in decades. By November 2020, Black Georgians had filed 71 percent more unemployment claims than White, Hispanic, Latinx, and Asian-American workers combined.
Being Black in Georgia, we fight daily for what so many take for granted in this country, the right to vote, the right to the fair and equal treatment that George Floyd didn't get, the right to be, the right to exist.
Today, in particular, we reflect on how far we have to go. One year ago, Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and murdered, simply because he was a Black man going for a jog in Brunswick, Georgia.
His murder by white supremacists and the subsequent delays in realizing justice may seem new, but Black people have dealt with systemic racism for centuries in America, and we are here to break these structures and dismantle these systems using our power and our message as the Congressional Black Caucus.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her words and certainly her powerful words on the importance of our Vice President, the Honorable Vice President Harris. We are grateful for her.
It is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), my co-anchor.
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Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I want to pay tribute to my classmate, Congress Member Nikema Williams, who, as the chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, was instrumental in winning the Senate for the Democratic Party.
Thanks to the leadership of on-the-ground organizers like Congress Member Williams, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, a Democratic President means we have the makings of an FDR moment. We have a historic opportunity to govern as boldly in the 21st century as FDR did in the 20th century.
Systemic racism in America traces back 400 years, and it is incredible to think that in the 400-year history of our country, we are as close as we have ever been to confronting the root causes of systemic racism.
That is the burden that we bear as the Congressional Black Caucus, but it is not only a burden. It is a blessing. Public service in an FDR moment is a blessing.
It is said the first historian, Herodotus, said that he wrote the first historical book so that the deeds of brave people cannot be forgotten. That is the same reason the CBC exists, so that the deeds of Black heroes like Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells, like John Lewis, like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, are never forgotten, that the contributions of Black America should remain front and center in the life of our country.
It has been an honor to be with you, Congress Member Jackson Lee. I cannot tell you how honored I feel to be a member of the CBC.
You know, I grew up poor most of my life. I was raised by a single mother who had to raise three children on minimum wage, which in the 1990s was $4.25 an hour. I grew up in public housing, in conditions of mold and mildew, leaks and lead, without consistent heat and hot water in the winter. I never could have imagined myself as a member of the greatest institution in the United States Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus. It is an honor to be here with you in this caucus at this moment.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, we are humbled by the gentleman's words. We are humbled by this moment in history.
I will conclude my remarks by building on Congressman Torres', that we are humbled, but we are honored, but we are ready to work.
I will leave you with these words from our colleague and others. John Lewis said we are in a very difficult time in our country. I am afraid we may wake up one day in America, and our democracy is gone. But he went on to say that when you see something that is not right, say something, do something, get into good trouble.
One of our ancient fathers, Frederick Douglass, said that there is no power without struggle.
Tonight, we have laid the landscape of genius, contributions, sacrifice, brilliance, and the commitment to civil rights that is the Congressional Black Caucus. Our message, our power, Our Power, Our Message. We will continue to work. We will not yield, not give in, not give out, and not give up.
Madam Speaker, let me thank my colleagues for joining the CBC Special Order tonight, and I thank the Speaker.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, this evening, on the occasion of this special order hour, I rise to commemorate the Congressional Black Caucus and its rich history of representation of Black voices across the nation.
Today's Black Caucus is the materialization of the vision that our founding members had 50 years ago. Now nearly 60 members strong, our caucus has fought to empower the Black community so that they too may achieve the American Dream. And our success in doing so, as well as upholding the fundamentals of democracy, is unparalleled in this body's history.
Now, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we face one of our toughest challenges yet. While it is true that the pandemic has affected all of us in some way, it has especially highlighted and exacerbated the inequalities that the Black community still faces in our society. We have been forced to battle the pandemic on two fronts--
health-wise and economically.
Studies show that the comorbidities most closely associated with COVID-19 complications are diabetes and hypertension, which disproportionately affect the Black community. The prevalence of these diseases is systemic in nature--a result of decades of a lack of access to quality, accessible, and culturally competent medical care.
I have also met with Black business owners in North Texas, who credited preexisting funding gaps and feeble relationships with lenders for their hardships during the pandemic. Disadvantaged at the onset, these businesses became increasingly unable to meet market needs, and reports now say that the pandemic has wiped out nearly half of Black small businesses in our country.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Caucus has played a critical role in the drafting and enacting of legislation to support Black Americans--
including President Biden's newest package. Billed as the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion relief package consists of several provisions advocated for by the Black Caucus. Among them include $400 billion for vaccine distribution with a focus on minority communities,
$15 billion for equitably distributed grants to minority-owned small businesses, and investment in infrastructure projects to create more jobs for unemployed minorities.
Madam Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus will certainly play a prominent Congress for generations to come. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in the caucus to advance better, more equitable policies for all.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 34
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
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