[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 19 (Thursday, February 13, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H576-H580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH AND RACE ENTERTAINMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Jackson] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I am particularly honored on 
this occasion to welcome the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. 
Shimkus] to the 105th Congress. I know he gave his first special order 
just a few moments ago. He, like I, when I first became a Member of 
this institution, was quite nervous, and we talked about it just before 
he began. But I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome him to the 
105th Congress and indicate to him how much I look forward to serving 
with him in this institution.
  Today for the better part of this special order I want to talk about 
a subject that is near and dear to my heart, that is near and dear to 
39 Members of this institution, the Congressional Black Caucus. This is 
African-American History Month. We find ourselves this February 
confronting some challenges as a nation.
  We have heard our Speaker talk about racial reconciliation. We have 
heard our President address the issue of racial reconciliation. And I 
thought what a better start we could have if we could just begin an 
honest dialogue about racial reconciliation in the context of Black 
History Month.
  Carter G. Woodson is known as the father of black history. Originally 
it was designated to be just one week long, and then it eventually 
became a month. He knew that the African-American experience was unique 
and that the chronologizing of the African-American history and the 
chronologists of American history did not, would not and could not 
acknowledge the contributions that African-Americans have made.
  Recently racial reconciliation has become a widely talked about 
issue. The O.J. case has forced us to face the wide gap separating 
white and black Americans in their views of our criminal justice 
system. How can people have such different perspectives of the same 
case according to the color of their skin? It becomes obvious that 
blacks and whites are not speaking from the same page because both 
groups are looking at the case through the lens of their own 
experiences, in this case, the experiences of whites versus the 
experiences of people of color with the criminal justice system.
  The first step in a process of racial reconciliation is to build 
understanding between the races. We cannot have an effective 
conversation about racial reconciliation, which is one of the Speaker's 
goals, which is certainly one of the President's goals, if we do not 
try to understand the other group and their experiences. This is what 
Carter G. Woodson was thinking about and reflecting about when he 
wanted us as a Nation to pause during the month of February to 
acknowledge the contribution of African-Americans.
  The purpose of this special order today is to take that first step, a 
serious dialogue about race issues, by beginning to explain the 
historical experience of African-Americans and by explaining the 
history of obstacles and advances which have allowed me to stand in 
this room and speak to you today as the 91st African-American Member of 
Congress.
  To talk about the history of blacks in America, one cannot avoid the 
story of the struggle against discrimination in America. The two are 
intertwined. It is hard for many people to sit down and listen to a 
history full of discrimination. Many people do not want to relive it. 
Others do not feel like, they feel more like they are being blamed, but 
the history has to be told because many people are not aware of the 
full history, Mr. Speaker.
  To build bridges, we have to build awareness. One of the greatest 
problems in race relations is the lack of awareness about 
discrimination. The discrimination that many blacks experience every 
day as common knowledge is the same discrimination that many whites do 
not experience and do not realize even exists. As a Member of this 
institution, I found myself in the 104th Congress, since I do not wear 
the identification pin that most Members of Congress tend to wear, late 
at night standing out in front of the Capitol of the United States 
trying to catch a taxi.
  Why can I not catch a taxi late at night in Washington, DC? I do not 
know. But I have some assumptions. That young African-American males in 
America trying to catch a cab late at night, where the cab driver is 
white or black, brings certain prejudices to the whole notion of 
catching a cab. For example, they may think that I am going to rob 
them. They may think that I am going to take something from them when 
the reality is nothing could be further from the truth. Discrimination 
exists even for Members of this institution as Members of Congress 
whether we talk about it in our daily lives on the floor of this 
Congress or not.
  The purpose of this speech today is not to blame or create guilt over 
black history. It is to build an understanding, to begin to explain the 
experiences of African-Americans. A better understanding, I genuinely 
believe, will help us move past the guilt to create positive change.
  So I must ask each and every one, particularly the Members who are in 
their offices today to do just one thing: Put aside your opinions for 
now and try to imagine with me for a moment what it is like to be an 
African-American. I ask those of you who are not African-Americans to 
imagine that you are experiencing the history as being an African-
American, that is the history of your people in this country, the 
history of your sisters, your brothers, your parents and your 
grandparents. I ask you to imagine what it would feel like had you had 
to have that certain outlook on the world.
  I ask if you are an African-American to listen to this story as if 
you were white, as if this was the first time you heard some of these 
accounts. How would you react?
  My first special order, one of five special orders I plan to have 
this month, is entitled, ``O.J. and Race Entertainment.'' The noted 
historian John Hope Franklin in his book, ``The Color Line,'' 1993, 
said perhaps the very first thing we need to do as a nation and as 
individual members of society is to confront our past and to see it for 
what it is. If we do that, he says, whites will discover that African-
Americans possess the same human qualities that other Americans 
possess, and African-Americans will discover that white Americans are 
capable of the most sublime expressions of human conduct of which all 
human beings are capable.

  Then he suggests we need to do everything possible to emphasize the 
positive qualities that all of us have, qualities that we have never 
had to utilize to the fullest but which remain, but which we must 
utilize if we are to solve the problem of the color line in the 21st 
century.
  America is a nation that is in dire need of entertainment. And the 
media, Mr. Speaker, knows how to provide it.

[[Page H577]]

You want movie entertainment, go see Independence Day. You go see a 
movie that does what no Democrats or Republicans could ever do, watch 
the aliens blow up Capitol Hill, not the deficit or the debt, but 
aliens. Watch them blow up the White House, watch them destroy Wall 
Street. If you want good movie entertainment, go see Independence Day.
  If you want sports entertainment, you have the best, Michael Jordan, 
and, some could arguably say, the worst, Dennis Rodman on the same 
team. Why is that? Because Dennis Rodman--multicolored hair, many 
tatoos, more earrings on his body than a fishing lure--he understands 
entertainment. You want race entertainment and you do not want to have 
a serious dialog about race, about injustice in America. Here is O.J.
  In fact, race entertainment is becoming increasingly popular. Name 
another subject that could give Geraldo Rivera the same television 
viewer ratings or Rush Limbaugh the same radio listenership. O.J. 
Simpson has given virtual rise to a new entertainment network, race 
entertainment television.
  It is not substantive discussion about understandings from African-
Americans, Asian-Americans, native Americans, women in our society or 
people who are working upward in the society to make a difference for 
their families. No, that is not O.J. entertainment or race 
entertainment. You want race entertainment, nonsensical dialog about 
moving the society forward, engage in it.
  Talking about race and racial reconciliation is clearly becoming the 
in thing. It is the politically acceptable thing. The Nation responded 
positively to President Clinton's discussion of racial diversity in his 
inaugural address on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s holiday and again in his 
State of the Union Address. Speaker Gingrich followed with a call on 
race ignorance and drugs.
  Nobody in the media wants to just talk about the O.J. Simpson 
verdict. They wanted to talk about the O.J. Simpson verdict and what it 
is revealing about the current state of race relations in America. The 
fact that the O.J. Simpson trial is being viewed and used as a news 
hook to talk about race in this country is a sign of just how far off 
the point the media truly is. If we are going to have an honest 
conversation about this, we have to ask ourselves the question, why do 
African-Americans and white Americans see the justice system so 
differently?

                              {time}  1615

  Let us look at some of the historical chronology, and then we will 
come back to O.J.
  In 1705, a Massachusetts law provided that any African-American or 
mulatto who struck a white person be severely whipped, at the 
discretion of the justices before whom the offender was convicted.
  In 1708, a Connecticut law imposed a penalty riot exceeding lashes 
for any African-American who disturbed the peace or attempted to strike 
a white person.
  In 1718, a Rhode Island law was enacted that said to the States if a 
slave is found in a free black's home, both should be whipped.
  In 1730, a Connecticut law provided for penalty of 40 lashes for any 
black, native American, or mulatto who attempted to defame a white 
person.
  Of particular importance to O.J., and I have not heard this in any of 
the analysis, in 1816 a Louisiana State law prohibited slaves from 
testifying against whites and free blacks except in cases where free 
blacks were allegedly involved in slave uprisings.
  In 1827, from my State, the State of Illinois, a law decreed that 
blacks and native Americans and mulattos were incompetent to testify in 
court against whites.
  In 1831, here is a real case study, Ohio said that African-Americans 
were prohibited from serving on juries as a matter of law.
  In 1848, Ohio's black laws were then reversed, giving blacks legal 
standing in the courts.
  In 1849, Ohio lifted its ban on testimony by blacks in courts.
  In 1855, black Bostonians protested the absence of black jurors and 
called for equal judicial rights.
  In 1860, two blacks in Worcester, MA, were named jurors, the first 
black jurors in Massachusetts's history.
  In 1862, California African-Americans were granted the right to 
testify in cases for the first time where white men were defendants.
  In 1865, the first interracial jury in the United States indicted 
Jefferson Davis for treason. The case was set for trial in 1868.
  In 1880, in Stauder versus West Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court 
ruled that the exclusion of blacks from the jury was unconstitutional. 
And the way around the Stauder case, many prosecutors have now used 
preemptory strikes to accomplish what the Constitution has already 
eliminated as unconstitutional.
  In 1919, in State versus Young, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled 
that a black man sentenced to life in prison was denied equal 
protection under the law because his jury had no black members. The 
State subsequently admitted black jury members.
  In 1926, Violette N. Anderson was the first black woman attorney to 
present a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
  In 1930, President Hoover nominated Judge John J. Parker of North 
Carolina, a known Klansman, to the U.S. Supreme Court. The NAACP led a 
successful campaign against Mr. Parker's confirmation.
  In 1947, be patient with me, I am coming up to 1997, Rosa Lee Ingram, 
a Georgia tenant farmer, and two of her husbands were convicted and 
sentenced to death for the murder of a white man whom Ingram alleged 
assaulted her. The case spurred a national defense and an amnesty 
program that resulted in her pardon in 1959.
  On the mind of every African-American still living today, 1955, 
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth, was murdered in Mississippi by 
white men. The murder was so brutal and the child's body was beaten so 
badly that at first he could only be identified by the ring that he was 
wearing.
  The reason for his murder: A Chicago native, on a dare from his 
friends, on a dare from his friends, whistled at a white woman. The two 
white men arrested for the crime were acquitted by an all-white jury.
  The particularly graphic picture of Emmett Till's body appeared in 
Jet magazine and is freshly etched in the minds of every African-
American.
  In 1959, Mack Charles Parker was lynched in Poplarville, MS. A grand 
jury received evidence in the case but refused to acknowledge that a 
lynching had even occurred.
  In 1961, on an integrated bus in Alabama, there were routinely 
arrests in Mississippi, and, as they routinely arrested people in 
Mississippi, a Federal judge had to issue an injunction against the 
police to get them to protect the Freedom Riders.
  Later, evidence surfaces that local police in Birmingham and 
Montgomery were involved in the violence and that an FBI employee 
participated in the Ku Klux Klan's strategy sessions. The FBI did 
nothing to stop the violence it knew was planned.
  These are accounts that my grandmother, who is still living, and my 
great-grandmother, God rest her soul, she is still living and in a 
coma, often used to tell us about. She used to tell us in 1963 about 
Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist and field secretary for the 
NAACP. He was shot in the back.
  The rifle bore the fingerprints of Byron de la Beckwith, a vocal 
member of a local white supremacist group. Despite overwhelming 
evidence against Mr. Beckwith, including an earlier statement that he 
wanted to kill Mr. Evers, Beckwith was set free after two trials with 
all-white juries.
  In 1989, evidence surfaced suggesting that juries had been tampered 
with. Beckwith was not convicted for the murder until over 26 years 
after he had committed the crime.
  Just 2 years ago this case was resolved, and there is presently a 
movie at the theater starring Whoopi Goldberg to illustrate how recent 
and current the history is that many African-Americans have with 
juries.
  The FBI files referred to Dr. King as the most dangerous Negro leader 
in the Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and the 
national security. The FBI began high surveillance of this civil rights 
leader and those close to him in an attempt to expose, disrupt, 
discredit, and otherwise neutralize them. Attorney General Robert F. 
Kennedy authorized the FBI to tap Dr. King's phones.

[[Page H578]]

  An FBI letter referring to Dr. King and other civil rights leaders 
that it would ``be unrealistic to limit ourselves, as we have been 
doing, to legalistic proofs or definitely conclusive evidence that 
would stand up in the court or before congressional committees.''
  In an attempt to replace King with a manageable black leader, the 
FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, began an extended 
character assault against Dr. King, labeling him a Communist 
sympathizer and an adulterer.
  The O.J. Simpson verdicts themselves are really, Mr. Speaker, not 
that complicated. Assuming the rules of the judicial system in Los 
Angeles and Santa Monica were fair and followed, and only the appellate 
process will determine that, we must accept both verdicts if we are to 
live in a nation of laws and not men and women. Personal views are just 
that, personal views, to which everyone is entitled. They are 
irrelevant, however, with respect to being in a nation of laws.
  The principle should not be difficult to accept. All of us want to 
live and work in a nation of laws, in a society where equal protection 
of the laws is respected and accepted. This really, Mr. Speaker, should 
be all there is to O.J. Simpson. Guilty, not guilty, and guilty. That 
is over with and done with.
  But how do we get from O.J. Simpson's verdicts to race relations and 
to race entertainment? I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, we arrive at this 
conclusion by dealing with symbols over substance and talk over action.
  President Clinton stood on the steps of the Capitol, looking west 
toward the Lincoln Memorial, the spot where Dr. King gave his famous 
1963 speech. When he gave his Inaugural speech and paid tribute to Dr. 
King's dream, President Clinton spoke to the poetic symbolism of Dr. 
King's dream but not to its economic substance.
  Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking east 
toward the Capitol and the Congress, and he spoke to them about our 
Nation's budget priorities, about economic justice as the path to 
racial justice as the substance of his speech. He talked about a 
promissory note, about a check that had bounced, that had been 
returned, that had been marked ``Insufficient funds.''
  But Dr. King refused to believe that the bank of justice was 
bankrupt, and he said that there would neither be rest nor tranquility 
in America until the promissory note was made good.
  Today, the White House and both Democrats and Republicans discussed 
that same promissory note, that same bounced check, and that same bank 
of justice, using different terms. Now the false bankruptcy is called a 
balanced budget or balanced budget amendment.
  Assessing the state of the Union depends on one's vantage point. You 
see one thing if you are on the top looking down. It was a great speech 
for those of us who were on the top looking down. You see quite another 
thing if you are a worker or you are poor or you are economically 
insecure and you are looking up.
  If you are well educated, if you are employed full time at basically 
a job of your choosing, if you are making a decent salary, if you and 
your family have good health and an insurance plan, if you are living 
in a relatively safe and affordable house, then the state of the Union 
is pretty much what President Clinton said it was in his State of the 
Union Address. Then we, as a nation, have a decent shot clearly, at 
that level, at making racial progress.
  But you may be 1 of the 15 to 20 million Americans who are 
unemployed, underemployed, working part time when you want to be 
working full time, have never had a job, gave up looking for a job so 
that you are not even counted among the unemployed, or with corporate 
or government downsizing you are worried that you may be soon in one of 
these categories.
  In that economic climate, does anyone think that the American people 
can really hear and really understand a conversation about race and 
racial reconciliation?
  If you are 1 of the 40 million Americans without health insurance, 
another 40 million with inadequate health insurance, a worker who is 
being asked to pay more for less medical care, is anyone who is ill-
insured or has no insurance, is anyone really convinced that racial 
reconciliation is high atop that individual's priorities and agenda?
  If you are not living in safe, sanitary, and affordable housing, then 
you have a personal housing crisis. But much of the country lives that 
way, so America has a housing crisis.
  In the late sixties, a White House Conference on Housing called for 
26 million housing starts over the next 10 years, with 6 million 
federally subsidized. That translates into 2,600,000 each year, 600,000 
federally subsidized housing over 10 years.
  The Nation has never approximated that goal, and currently we are 
over 1.5 million new housing starts. And the population has grown, so 
the crisis is worse today than it was three decades ago. Thus, we now 
need more housing than ever, for America is ill-housed. How can we 
expect people to be sensitive about race and about racial 
reconciliation when there is a housing crisis?
  Our education system is in crisis. Not all of our children are being 
educated for work and life in the 21st century. Certainly, one can say 
that the President made a huge effort in his State of the Union Address 
to improve our educational system and make it more accessible to more 
people through the various initiatives he spelled out in his speech in 
the form of tax breaks, tuition grants, and scholarships. For that, he 
is to be commended.
  While the effort was there, and I agreed with that, for quality of 
education is an entitlement of every American, one cannot be as sure 
about the effectiveness of these programs for the students who have the 
greatest need, those who are the least well off. While many will 
benefit from the President's plan, it appears that most of the money 
will go to students who plan to attend college anyway.
  It is a kind of ``Democrats for the leisure class'' approach of 
giving tax relief to the middle class in the guise of education reform; 
a tinkering, top-down, talented, and technocratic approach to solving a 
very real problem.
  In my district, I have cities that do not have tax bases at all, not 
one job in the town, not enough money, Mr. Speaker, to raise revenue to 
pay their firemen, to pay their police officers. In this particular 
context, high school students are in school districts where there are 
no resources on a regular basis, a consistent basis, to pay teachers 
what they deserve. Can we really move systematically toward solving our 
race problem when we cannot provide a quality education for all of 
America's children?
  On the watch of a current Democrat President and a Republican 
Congress, the United States has become the most economically unequal 
industrialized democracy in the world in terms of wealth and income. 
While taxes have probably never been totally fair for the average 
American, tax unfairness was dramatically escalated under the Reagan 
tax program of 1981. Thus, we do not need a more benevolent and less 
extreme tax plan than Ronald Reagan's, we need a reversal of that plan.
  We do not need tax cuts for the middle class as much as we need fair 
taxes for everybody. Inherent in fair taxes for all is a reduction in 
taxes for the middle class, the working class, and the poor. How does 
one get racial justice in America in the context of economic injustice?

                              {time}  1630

  The reality is you cannot. The more likely outcome and one which we 
are currently witnessing is the dynamic scapegoating of people of color 
and the poor in a mean spirit. The logical result of this current 
economic climate is the passage of proposition 187, immigrant bashing 
in California and other xenophobic measures.
  The current racial climate engenders scapegoating by blaming the lack 
of jobs on affirmative action for women and people of color. In this 
current climate it is the politically weakest and most vulnerable among 
us who are being economically assaulted in the name of welfare reform.
  The reality is, Mr. Speaker, there can only be anecdotal racial 
reconciliation under the present circumstances of economic inequality 
and insecurity. Thus, to talk about race and racial reconciliation 
without acting to bring about a full employment peacetime economy, 
without universal and comprehensive health care system, without

[[Page H579]]

adequate, safe and affordable housing for every American, without 
quality education for every American child, without economic fairness 
in wealth and income, is talk that can only lead to more hostility, 
frustration and racial animosity. To deal with the American people on 
the matter of race in such a manner is to play games with them. It is 
engaging in race entertainment.
  Frustration at the inability to make racial progress will lead to 
increased racial tensions, witnessed daily on television or experienced 
every day by average black, white, red, yellow, brown people. Or in the 
extreme, it can even lead to a racial explosion, as we witnessed in the 
aftermath of the Rodney King trial.
  The other alternative, Mr. Speaker, is to think that you are 
contributing to racial progress merely by talking about it privately. I 
am reminded about former Senator Bill Bradley's poignant statement, 
``When is the last time you sat down with a person of another race and 
had a frank discussion about race?''
  Yes, dialog undoubtedly helps break down barriers and contributes to 
understanding, but enhanced personal interactions, without economic 
progress, will never achieve the goal of racial reconciliation. One 
might wonder why I appear to be downplaying the importance of educating 
the American people about race through public dialog.
  My point is that merely talking about or reporting on race relations 
through the media, especially television, is subject to the same 
limitations as in the case of individual dialog. Ted Koppel and 
Nightline have done some wonderful and important shows on race, but 
unless in the long term it is reported in the context of a 
comprehensive economic approach, it will not markedly improve race 
relations in America. In fact, in an unintended way, it may even add to 
the frustrations and to the tensions by reflecting a lack of progress 
on the racial front.
  The problem is that we cannot make real progress on the race question 
in economic isolation. The race problem must be solved in the context 
of providing employment, health care, housing, education, and a fair 
share of wealth and income to all of America's people.
  If we attempt to deal with the race question outside of the economic 
context, we are engaging in entertainment, because we cannot make 
systematic progress in race relations under these conditions. What 
often happens is that television ends up, since the networks must be 
concerned with ratings, not educating people about race but using race 
to entertain them instead, and unfortunately this is often done in the 
most sensational manner.
  That is why I say that the O.J. Simpson trials have basically been 
about race entertainment, not about racial education or racial 
reconciliation. What could be more sensational and off the point than 
substantively dealing with the state of current race relations in 
America than the O.J. Simpson trials? Star black male athlete alleged 
to have murdered his beautiful blonde white wife.
  There is more racial understanding and racial reconciliation possible 
in 1 year, Mr. Speaker, of full employment than there is in three 
decades of talking about race on television, no matter how well-
intentioned, how well done or how well researched.
  Sensationalizing race in the current economic climate can only 
increase tension, add to frustration, increase cynicism, and eventually 
contribute to drug use and scapegoating, where people implode and turn 
on each other rather than to each other.
  Racial justice is not the same as economic justice. There would still 
be racism in a full employment economy. But systematic and steady 
racial progress can only be achieved in the context of a 
full employment economy, and it would only be achieved to the degree 
that we as a nation make progress on economic issues.

  Thus, Mr. Speaker, that is why I always say the Federal Reserve Board 
and the Federal Reserve System must become part of the racial justice 
dialog. Every time unemployment dips below 5 percent, Chairman 
Greenspan uses employment growth to say that the economy is overheating 
and as a rationale to raise interest rates, slow the economy and raise 
unemployment.
  I oppose the Democratic welfare reform bill. I oppose the Republican 
welfare reform bill. I thought it was horrible when the President of 
the United States said that he was going to support the welfare reform 
bill and 98 Democrats voted for it and 98 Democrats voted against it. 
But let us assume, since it is a matter of law now, and it is a 
horrible bill that still needs correction by this body, let us assume 
for a moment that we are going to move people genuinely from welfare to 
work.
  Who is on welfare? People who are unemployed or people who are 
underemployed? Let us assume that they are part of the 5 percent, the 
very bottom of our Nation's economy, those with whom the social safety 
net of this country was designed to protect. Two years and you are off, 
we say in the bill. But let us say for the very first time because the 
Dow Jones industrial average is now above the 6,000 mark, that the 
economy is now beginning to reach the unemployed and the underemployed 
for the very first time. Let us say that the opportunities that the 
President talks about in his State of the Union Address, 10 million new 
jobs, now at 11 million new jobs, let us say that those jobs are 
finally beginning to reach the unemployed and the underemployed for the 
first time. As soon as unemployment in our Nation dips beneath 5 
percent, the Federal Reserve and its chairman has a press conference, 
and the very first thing they say is, ``The economy is overheating, 
we've got to slow the economy down, we've got to jack up interest 
rates, we've got to slow the economy down,'' and, therefore, this 
institution, along with the Federal Reserve, creates a permanent class 
of poverty in our Nation without any more government assistance.
  Shame on us, Mr. Speaker. Shame on Democrats and Republicans who do 
not recognize and will not acknowledge that the Federal Reserve Board 
has a unique and an integral role to play in racial reconciliation, 
because jobs that have never been and have been eliminated from a 
generation of people are not reaching them.
  Even definitions must become part of the racial justice dialog. That 
is why we need Presidential leadership. The politically motivated 
movement to redefine the Consumer Price Index, lowering the Consumer 
Price Index in order to reduce the budget deficit, will have a negative 
effect on the lives of real Americans, but disproportionately on the 
lives of people of color. It will impact race relations. It is not a 
conversation for just Wall Street or a bunch of economists. This is 
serious business.
  Similarly, Mr. Speaker, even the way we define full employment 
affects race relations. ``Oh, Jesse,'' Members on the other side walk 
up to me all the time, Democrats walk up to me all the time, shake my 
hand, ``Hey, Jesse, I marched with your dad''; ``Hey, Jesse, been there 
with you''; ``You're so right, friend,'' but constantly vote against 
everything I am for.
  It does not make sense, Mr. Speaker. It sure feels good, but we are 
not making any progress. In 1971, when Richard Nixon was President, 
unemployment had risen to just over 5 percent. At that time, our Nation 
defined 3 percent as full employment. He thought, Mr. Nixon, that 5 
percent might cost him the election in 1972, so what did he do in 
August of 1971? He took an action traditionally attributed to 
Democratic officials and imposed wage-and-price controls. He jawboned 
the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and it worked. By November 
of 1972, the economy was booming, employment had dramatically risen, 
and he was overwhelmingly reelected.
  They accused George McGovern of losing the election because he was 
too liberal. The fact of the matter is Richard Nixon won reelection 
because he was the liberal. He challenged the Federal Reserve, and he 
moved unemployment back to a number that was more acceptable by the 
American people.
  In 1997, however, we are no longer at 3 percent. We are at 5 percent. 
And every time finally the underemployed get an opportunity, they 
jawbone the economy and start moving the economy in an opposite 
direction.

[[Page H580]]

  We must challenge, Mr. Speaker, the media, political, labor, and 
other leaders to transform the national discussion and debate from mere 
racial justice for minorities to greater racial justice for minorities 
in the context of greater economic justice for all Americans.
  Dr. King's dream was poetic and it was symbolic. Dr. King's substance 
was a nonviolent, activist, economic strategy to combat racism and 
bring about racial reconciliation. That is why he moved from just 
talking about racial justice to talking about racial reconciliation in 
the context of an economic justice movement.
  In 1968 when he was killed, he was not fighting for civil rights. 
That bill was passed in 1964, and he was not sleeping for 4 years. What 
was he doing in 1968? He was leading a poor people's campaign that 
paralleled the national Presidential campaign because he wanted the 
Nation's priorities to reflect raising boats that were stuck at the 
bottom.
  In a nation with the economic ability and the technological 
capability of providing every American with a decent life, it is an 
outrage and it is a scandal that there should be such social misery in 
our country.
  What do we say to the American poor and to the victims of racism and 
sexism and classism in America? Do we tell them, Mr. Speaker, that you 
are better off than the Russian poor? You are better off than the 
Bosnian poor? You are better off than the Asian poor, the African poor, 
the Latin poor? This, Mr. Speaker, has got to be close to cruel and 
insensitive and immoral.
  No, we must tell them that such injustice is intolerable. That no 
American should be institutionally and systematically maimed in body 
and in spirit when our country has the means of doing better. The 
standard is not a comparison of how much worse things could be, but how 
much better things should be if we had only the political leadership 
and the development of the political will to change.
  We are a nation, Mr. Speaker, of enormous national wealth that is 
tragically suffering from an anemia of national will to do what we know 
is just. It is time to end race entertainment, and it is time to start 
down the sure path of economic and racial justice.

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