[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 92 (Thursday, June 20, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HOLDS HEARINGS ON CHURCH BURNINGS

                                 ______


                        HON. WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 20, 1996

  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker. Today the Congressional Black Caucus [CBC] 
held hearings on the rash of church burnings occuring across the 
Nation. The list of panelists included government officials, civil 
rights leaders, religious leaders, the Fraternal Order of Police, and 
the Anti-Defamation League. Each made a significant contribution to the 
dialog on increasing the Federal response to the church burnings. 
However, one of the most poignant and thought-provoking statements was 
submitted by the youngest member of the Caucus, Hon. Jesse L. Jackson, 
Jr.
  I commend Congressman Jackson's remarks to my colleagues with hopes 
that his words will be as enlightening to Members as they were to those 
in attendance at today's hearing.

             Statement by Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.

       Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for calling these 
     hearings. They are necessary. They are important. They are 
     informative and help to educate and arouse the American 
     people and elected officials to corrective action.
       I want to commend the Justice Department, and especially 
     Deval Patrick, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil 
     Rights, for his tireless and ceaseless efforts at 
     investigating these crimes against God and humanity.
       The Congress deserves some credit for passing a stronger 
     law on Tuesday that gives the Department of Justice greater 
     leverage in prosecuting those who engage in the desecration 
     or destruction of property belonging to religious 
     institutions.
       I want to thank President Bill Clinton for his forthright 
     leadership in going to South Carolina and seeing first hand 
     the crisis and meeting with the victims whose church has been 
     destroyed. That is a necessary and effective use of the bully 
     pulpit of the presidency.
       What has happened? Over 63 African American churches have 
     been burned over the past five years. Other churches, with 
     African American members, have been burned. There has been a 
     pattern. The firebombed churches have almost all been very 
     small rural churches located in isolated areas.
       Why is this happening? Is it a legal conspiracy? The jury 
     is still out--and the investigation is still on--with regard 
     to a legal conspiracy.
       Is it a cultural conspiracy? And what is meant when someone 
     says that? Let me try to explain. I am from Chicago and a big 
     Chicago Bulls fan. When Michael Jordan shoots a 3-point shot, 
     Chicago fans jump in excitement because Michael Jordan just 
     made a basket. But guess what? Michael Jordan fans in Los 
     Angeles, Dallas, Miami and all around the country jump up 
     too--a kind of cultural conspiracy, if you will--because, in 
     basketball terms, Michael Jordan represents the common 
     denominator through which all of his fans relate.
       What's the parallel to church burnings? When we talk about 
     cultural conspiracies with respect to church burnings, we are 
     talking about some politicians, some radio and television 
     talk-show hosts, and other hate mongers around the country 
     fanning the flames of economic insecurity and race hatred, 
     fanning the fears of racial animosity with anti-affirmative 
     action, anti-majority-minority, anti-immigration propaganda 
     from the very top of our nation, creating a kind of racial 
     cultural conspiracy.
       In 1964, in reaction to Brown v. Board of Education 
     decision in 1954 and the resulting civil rights movement, 
     Barry Goldwater, a Republican, ran his presidential campaign 
     talking about States' rights. It was a way of saying that 
     States had a way around the equal protection clause of the 
     Constitution of the United States.
       In 1968, in response to the 1967 and 1968 riots and the 
     anti-Vietnam mass protests, Richard Nixon, a Republican, ran 
     his campaign on a law and order theme.
       In 1972, George Wallace, a Democrat, ran his campaign in 
     reaction to attempts to desegregate the schools, on an anti-
     busing platform.
       In 1976, even Jimmy Carter, also a Democrat, gave a speech 
     in Indiana talking about ethnic purity.
       In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan talked about welfare 
     queens; and in 1988 it was George Bush who used Willie 
     Horton.
       Even our current President, in 1992, used Sister Souljah in 
     his bid to become the President of the United States.
       This year we heard Pat Buchanan, a presidential candidate, 
     equate ``We Shall Overcome'' with whistling ``Dixie.'' He 
     said those who sing ``We Shall Overcome'' and those who 
     whistle ``Dixie'' are both involved in freedom movements.
       Well, if whistling ``Dixie,'' protecting the Confederacy, 
     and ``We Shall Overcome,'' fighting for equal protection 
     under the law, can be equated, it suggests that either we are 
     all missing the boat or that something is taking place within 
     our nation that has not been healed (even) since the Civil 
     War.
       The Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, and, Tom 
     Wicker reports in his new book, Tragic Failure, ``on January 
     23, 1995 . . . in the ornate hearing room of the House Rules 
     Committee, the victorious Republicans removed a portrait of 
     former Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, a renowned 
     white liberal Democrat. That was understandable, but the new 
     Republican committee chairman, Gerald Solomon of New York, 
     had order the Pepper portrait replaced by that of another 
     Democrat, the late Howard Smith of Virginia, a last-ditch 
     segregationist and in his many years as Rules Committee 
     chairman one of the most powerful opponents of the civil 
     rights legislation of the sixties.''
       All of the above were seeding the clouds of racism; all 
     were using race to manipulate voters; all were engaged in a 
     cultural conspiracy to exploit the racial fears and 
     insecurities of the American people. Such words and actions 
     help to set a national climate that appeals, not to the best 
     in us, but to the worst in us. And that climate rubs the 
     sticks, strikes the spark, and fans the winds, that 
     eventually bring us the burning down of Black churches.
       Even this year, expect affirmative action to be the 
     centerpiece of another political strategy to manipulate the 
     American people onto a so-called race issue--which really 
     isn't a race issue, since white women have been the biggest 
     beneficiaries of affirmative action. But it will divert 
     attention away from issues of substance. We need jobs and a 
     full employment economy. We need a single-payer national 
     health care system. We need affordable housing for all of our 
     people. We need an educational system that prepares our young 
     people to work in the 21st century. We need our national 
     infrastructure rebuilt--our roads, sewers, bridges, airports, 
     seaports and rails. We need our cities rebuilt. We need 
     family farmers restored to their land. We need our 
     environment cleaned up.
       That is what we need, but what we will likely get is 
     diversion--affirmative action, California Civil Rights 
     Initiative, proposition 187-type issues scapegoating 
     immigrants and more.
       That is why this hearing is so important. This hearing 
     helps to clarify what is really going on. It helps to 
     identify what politicians are really doing. It helps to 
     educate the American people so they can insulate themselves 
     from such diversion and, hopefully, demand more of those 
     running for public office in 1996.
       So I want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your 
     insight and wisdom in calling for this hearing. And thank you 
     for inviting me to participate.

                          ____________________