[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 27, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H615-H620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            IS RACISM ALIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) is 
recognized for the remainder of the minority leadership hour.
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Mrs. Meek), a great African American shero.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague.
  Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here today to celebrate 
black history, American history. The theme of this month or week and 
this special order is The Color Line Revisited: Is Racism Dead?
  Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues, the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson), and I also want to thank the 
Congressional Black Caucus for organizing today's black history special 
order.
  Certainly the history of the people of African descent is interwoven 
with the history of America. Since the first Africans arrived on what 
is now American soil in 1619, black Americans have played a pivotal 
role on behalf of the development of this great Nation. I rise to speak 
on behalf of this year's Black History Month as designated by the 
Association of the Study of African American Life in History. For me, 
every month is Black History Month.
  The Color Line Revisited: Is Racism Dead? This poignant theme forces 
us to reflect upon the legacy of African Americans and the state of 
race relations in America. To some people, race relations is a term 
that they feel a little bit shy to talk about or to think about. But we 
must still remember that race is a great divider in our great country, 
and we must talk about it.
  We have much to celebrate in the achievements of African Americans 
and the great strides this country has made towards equality. Just 
recently, we saw Vonetta Flowers make history by becoming the first 
African American ever to win a gold medal in the winter Olympics.
  We have had many, many firsts, but our many firsts should have been 
firsts many, many years ago. The fact that I am able to serve as a 
Member of Congress along with 38 other African Americans is a clear 
indication of how far we have come. In the State of Florida it took 
three of us 129 years to come to this Congress. My question is, was 
racism alive? Would we have been here 129 years earlier?
  America has changed much since I was a child growing up in 
Tallahassee, Florida, which at one time was really the seat of racism 
in the South. We no longer accept legal discrimination. We no longer 
allow poll taxes to bar African Americans from voting. We no longer 
accept separate but equal schools or water fountains. We are no longer 
forced to sit in the back of bus.
  But we do often sit in the back of the bus many times, maybe not in a 
real bus but in the bus that is America, many times we sit in the back 
seat. We are not happy about it. We fight every day to be sure that the 
people we represent and those who are not here in the halls of Congress 
as we are to say we must fight anything that stands in our way to keep 
us from equality.
  We are very proud, but there is much work to be done. We have come a 
very long way since the slave ships arrived on these shores. However, 
there is still a lot to be done.
  This theme makes us ask the difficult question, is racism really 
dead? This is an important question that has the capacity to make us 
feel a little uncomfortable. We would rather not have to answer this 
question.
  However, is racism dead when the black unemployment rate remains 
twice that of whites? Is racism dead when a young married couple is 
denied financing on the house of their dreams simply because of their 
skin color? Is a racism dead when a young black man is stopped for no 
apparent reason except for driving while black? Is racism dead when in 
my congressional district one out of six African Americans lack access 
to health insurance? Is racism dead when most young men who are fleeing 
from the police are shot in the back and it does not happen with any 
other color? When police use unjustified force against people of color, 
is racism dead?
  If racism were truly dead, we would not need a Federal Office of 
Civil Rights. We would not need the Fair Housing Act. We would not need 
the Community Reinvestment Act. We would not need countless other 
Federal and State offices whose job is to monitor and enforce equal 
treatment.
  These are just some of today's challenges for African Americans and 
for America and for this Congress.
  We need to continue to help America understand these challenges and 
struggles shall serve as incentives for a new program of action. We 
must work very hard to eradicate the institutional racism that exists 
in many of America's institutions, America schools, America's churches. 
All institutions in America frequently have racism.
  Let us work hard to fund educational reform at a level that will 
impact the schools that need it most. Let us work hard to make health 
care available and affordable for African Americans and for all 
Americans. Let us speak out and demand justice in the face of 
unjustified use of force by police in our communities.
  Our goal, as it was for the civil rights movement in the 1960s, 
should be an end to inequality in America. As we celebrate black 
history during this special month of February, let us realize that 
black history is American history. Let us commend ourselves as 
Americans, as African Americans to work ceaselessly to end the 
persistent inequalities in our Nation and improve the quality of life 
for all Americans, the challenge to keep what we have and a god to 
glorify.
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Mrs. Meek) for that very eloquent statement and also for actually 
working every day of your life to make the American dream real for all.
  I would like to now recognize my colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Georgia (Ms. McKinney), a fighter for justice and human rights both 
here at home and abroad.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Madam Speaker, I just want to state publicly for the 
record that you are a tremendous woman, a woman of courage and a woman 
I admire.
  ``The black man has no rights which the white man is bound to 
respect.'' That is what the Supreme Court wrote in black and white in 
1857. In the presidential election year 2000, when the Supreme Court 
selected George Bush as our President and failed to order that the 
votes of black voters be counted, did the Supreme Court resurrect the 
ghost of Judge Tanksley who wrote those words? ``The black man has no 
rights which the white man is bound to respect.''
  Certainly in Florida black voters had no rights that Jeb Bush and 
Katherine Harris felt bound to respect. They conspired with their 
leader, presidential candidate and Texas Governor George W. Bush to 
create a list, a so-called felons' list in order to target black people 
and keep them from voting. They came up with a list of 57,700 names 
from

[[Page H616]]

Florida and Texas as well as Ohio and New Jersey.
  Now, I do not think it is legal for Florida to deny Ohioans the right 
to vote. And we have our esteemed lawyers here, the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Conyers) who can perhaps tell us about the legality of Florida 
disenfranchising people who supposedly were from Ohio and New Jersey.

                              {time}  1800

  At any rate, for example, you have a voter by the name of Johnny 
Jackson, Jr., who is a black man from Texas, but in Jeb Bush's Florida, 
Johnny Jackson, Jr., becomes a convicted felon by the name of John 
Fitzgerald Jackson. Now, Katheryn Harris maintained that Johnny 
Jackson, Jr., is the same person as John Fitzgerald Jackson. So when 
John Fitzgerald Jackson in Florida goes to vote, Katheryn Harris, 
Secretary of State, and all those people say, ``Sorry, you cannot vote 
because you committed a felony in Texas. And in Texas your name was 
Johnny Jackson, Jr.'' Well, we know that that was not the case.
  And in case after case after case, black people were denied the right 
to vote. The black man has no rights which the white man is bound to 
respect. It happened with names from Ohio, where blacks in Florida were 
targeted as whites in Ohio; and it happened even in New Jersey, with 
Latinos who ended up on the list as convicted felons, even though they 
had not committed any crime at all except to be a minority and a 
probable Democratic voter in a State that George W. Bush needed to get 
elected as President.
  Sadly, 90 percent of the names on the 57,700 list of convicted felons 
were wrong. Sixty percent of those who were purged were black. Ninety-
three percent of the people who were targeted voted Democratic.
  Now, the subject of tonight's Special Order is: Is racism dead? Mr. 
Speaker, I will leave that up to you.
  Ms. LEE. Well, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for 
speaking the truth and for reminding us of another chapter of American 
history and black history. I thank her very much.
  I would like now to yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), who is a champion for civil rights 
not only here in the District of Columbia but throughout our country. 
She is a champion and defender of our Constitution, and one of these 
days there will be voting rights for all residents of the District of 
Columbia thanks to her and her constituents.
  Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlewoman for those kind remarks and for 
reminding this body of that outstanding debt in democracy owed to the 
600,000 people I represent. I was pleased to be in the gentlewoman's 
district during the most recent recess and saw how well she represents 
her district.
  I also want to thank our caucus chair, the gentlewoman from Texas 
(Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson), for her work in gathering us once again, 
as we do every year, to speak about African Americans during Black 
History Month.
  The theme chosen is well chosen, I must say: Is racism dead? I have 
to confess that for me the short answer is no. It is kind of a truism. 
I feel that I should not have to put forward the evidence, if you 
happen to live in this country of whatever background; but I do believe 
that my colleagues have more than demonstrated that proposition and 
that, by now, for those of us who want to open their minds, it is a 
self-evident matter.
  I thought that I would devote my few minutes, knowing that others 
would speak eloquently to answer the question of the day, that I would 
devote my 2 minutes to speaking about racial pride and the pride that 
our country should take in black heritage in this city. I feel 
constrained to do so because many people know that this is a great 
monumental city, but I would bet that many do not know that this is a 
great hub of African American history.
  I do not think I should let the Congress come here every year, sail 
through here without understanding the kind of black heritage that this 
city represents. The reason, of course, is that when this city was 
formed out of Maryland and Virginia, half of the blacks in the United 
States lived in those two States. So from the beginning it had a large 
African American population. A quarter of the population was African 
American. Interestingly, it did not become a majority African American 
city, it is now 60 percent black, until the 1950s.
  This city is always a major tourist destination site. Increasingly, 
it is becoming a black heritage destination site as well; and I would 
like to devote my few minutes to saying why. At a time when we want 
people to come to their capital city as an act of patriotism, I want to 
say that I want them also to come to learn more about their country. 
And this is a great city to learn more about our country because so 
much black history was made in this country.
  Indeed, as I speak, the Congress has allowed the home of Carter G. 
Woodson here, the father of black history, to become a historic site. 
We are about to get a bill I will soon be introducing in April that 
will take the home on 9th Street so that it is converted into the kind 
of home that Mt. Vernon is and that Frederick Douglass's home is. And 
we ought to do that because we are here talking about black history and 
this is the man that started black history, started the Association for 
the Study of Negro Life and History, who was the second black after 
W.E.B. DuBois to get a PhD from Harvard, the man to whom we owe the 
very idea of black history because he uncovered it for the first time.

  I mentioned the Frederick Douglass home. This is the city where 
Frederick Douglass did most of his work. He was the Recorder of Deeds 
in this city. It was from this city that he went to be ambassador to 
Haiti. It was in this city that he walked the halls of Congress.
  To its credit, the Congress has approved a Presidential commission 
for an African American museum on the Mall, thanks to a bill whose 
chief sponsors were the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt). This Presidential commission 
brings us for the first time close to the idea that African Americans 
ought to be commemorated in this city.
  This is the city where, of course, Howard University is found, the 
flagship university of black America, founded in 1867 as the first 
university that was open to blacks. It was open also to people of every 
race and color. Sterling Brown, the distinguished poet who taught at 
Howard, has said that after the Civil War the most distinguished and 
brilliant assemblage of negroes in the world, to quote him, came to 
this city. And that was in no small part because of Howard University. 
Howard University and the assemblage of so many black intellectuals 
made this a center for civil rights ferment and for the study and 
appreciation of African American history.
  On U Street now we have 209,145 United States Colored Troops who 
served in the Civil War commemorated in the first Civil War monument to 
the black troops who served their country in the Civil War. The 
descendants of these troops can trace their lineage through a registry 
located there.
  There is a 12th Street Y that was built by one of the Nation's first 
African American architects, and the son-in-law of Booker T. 
Washington. It was built by African American artisans in 1912, known 
not only as a historic structure but known for the many notable young 
men who passed through that Y: Dr. Charles Drew, the man who discovered 
blood plasma; former Georgetown University Coach John Thompson. The 
writer Langston Hughes, to name a few.
  There is a home near McPherson Square of Mary McLeod Bethune, the 
woman who managed to advise four Presidents before blacks got their 
rights anywhere in the United States.
  There is the Sumner school. This was the first public school for 
African Americans in the country. It later became the old M Street High 
School and the forerunner of Dunbar High School, the famous African 
American high school here where I was privileged to attend.
  The tourist season is starting. Many of us who live here, who work 
here, are unaware that this is one of the great cities for black 
heritage. It is a great American story here in the lives of black 
people. Much that is history in

[[Page H617]]

this city other than its Federal buildings is in fact black history. 
The building where we now stand, the Capitol of the United States of 
America, was built with the help of slave labor and the labor of free 
blacks.
  As we commemorate Black History Month and learn more about our 
history, as we seek to answer the question is racism dead, we ought 
also to seek to appreciate what African Americans have done for our 
country. One way to do so is to see the marvels of African American 
history laid out in the great Nation's capitol.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia for that very wonderful and thorough history 
lesson, and I thank her also for representing us, all who live here 
sometime during the week, for being our representative.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like now to yield to the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Conyers), the ranking Democrat on the Committee on the Judiciary, 
our great leader, and one who makes history each and every day here in 
this House of Representatives.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California and 
commend her for this very important event in which we recollect our 
thoughts and thinking on the most sensitive question in our society, 
the question of race.
  I am delighted to engage in a little recollection of things that have 
been going on in my life recently. I was at the University of Michigan 
for a black history program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a month ago; and I 
must say I was astounded by the department size, the fact that they had 
professors, they had fellows who were coming from all over the world. 
There was a young fellow that had just come from South Africa that day, 
who made the mistake of not bringing an overcoat to Michigan in 
January. It was a great program. And there was a genuine interest 
demonstrated by the university that I had not known about before. A 
talented professor, teacher, a member of my congressional district in 
Detroit, heads up this department at U of M, and she goes from Detroit 
to Ann Arbor 5 days a week and loves her work. There was a real 
enthusiasm there.
  And then 2 weeks ago I was approached by the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Hoekstra) to join him in a program in Traverse City in which they 
were celebrating the life of a soldier who had to pass for white in 
World War II to get into the Air Force, because it was before they 
created Tuskegee Institute, which Mayor Coleman Young, our first 
African American Mayor in the city of Detroit, went to this school. But 
this was before him. And so he had passed away. We gave his family nine 
or 10 medals, from the Purple Heart, up and down, that had been denied 
him. And thanks to my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Hoekstra), and myself, we were able to get the Department of the Air 
Force to go over this incredibly valiant record. He had reenlisted 
several times, and on his last mission his plane was shot down and he 
was killed.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. Speaker, it was quite enlightening because there were very few 
people of color at the school. I was at a school, it is the first K-12 
school I will ever recall being in in the North. Here it was in 
Traverse City. It was a very nice school, 300 young people, but still 
it went from K-12, which is quite a stretch in these days.
  In addition, I will be joining the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Lee) tomorrow in terms of a meeting that we will be having concerning 
Three Strikes and You're Out. I am looking forward to that because it 
is very, very important.
  I will be at the Wolverine Bar Association of Michigan's Annual 
Barristers' Ball this Saturday evening, a huge event, but it marks 
something more than just a wonderful social event. It marks the time 
not too far distant when African American lawyers could not practice 
law in the larger firms in Detroit.
  Wade McCree, Jr., who became a county judge, a Federal judge and 
appeals judge, was President Jimmy Carter's Solicitor General and was 
surely scheduled to go on the Supreme Court, went into workmen's 
compensation as a referee, although he was Harvard trained with all 
honors, because no law firm would accept him at that time.
  Our former colleague from Michigan, Congressman George Crockett, he, 
with Attorney Bill Goodman and others, they formed a firm called 
Goodman, Eden, Crockett, Robb, Philo & Millender, which was the first 
integrated firm in Detroit. This was in the 1940s. We are past that. We 
have broken into that. Our former mayor, Dennis Archer, is president-
elect of the American Bar Association. A doctor and former health 
department head of Washington, D.C., is now a vice president of the 
American Medical Association.
  So we have started making these kinds of movements, but it is 
important for us to understand that, even as we do, so we will be 
meeting tomorrow, a meeting that I invite everyone to, where we will be 
dealing with the subject of people of African descent in Latin America 
who have been largely ignored, notwithstanding there are 150 million of 
them, and they are moving forward in a very important way.
  So this kind of refreshes our minds as to where we are, what the 
struggles are. Reparations is still more than a dozen years old in the 
Congress, but it is many, many more years old, and we are still 
struggling to get a fair hearing here.
  The criminal justice system speaks for itself. Racial profiling, even 
though outlawed, is still practiced widely; and with the terrorist 
activity, there are those that argue that we should relax racial 
profiling because Arab Americans should be subject to different 
criteria than other people, while law enforcement has repeatedly stated 
that racial profiling is a poor police technique.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a health system in which the discrepancy of 
health statistics between people of color and not of color are widely 
known, and the Congressional Black Caucus is working very hard on that.
  Our unemployment statistics are double everybody else's, have been 
and still are.
  I cannot help but raise the question: How long are we going to 
tolerate African American slums and ghettoes in the major cities of 
America? They could have been wiped out in one fell swoop generations 
ago, and yet they are allowed to persist with Band-Aid programs.
  The AIDS crisis is a question of color because many people of color 
have no way of getting any assistance whatsoever, or the prevention 
techniques are not made available.
  Haiti is a question, and I always am intrigued by Americans who say, 
why are you so interested in Haiti? Haiti is the place where African 
slaves were transported, the indigenous people were eliminated, and 
this is the closest black country on the Western Hemisphere, the only 
black country in the Western Hemisphere and is the nearest you can get 
to Africa without leaving the Western Hemisphere.
  We have the problem of the disparities in the treatment by our own 
State Department of the 48 States that compromise the continent of 
Africa, and that is even though we have an African American Secretary 
of State. We are struggling just as we always have.
  Affirmative action has been under constant legal threats, and I am 
not proud to say that in the Eastern District of Michigan we had a 
decision that came out so badly that it is almost unbelievable, and it 
is going to make its way up to the courts.
  These are some of the concerns that I have.
  I will be in Philadelphia celebrating Black History Month. I want to 
read other Members' remarks. I think they would make a very interesting 
paper, document or book, and I would volunteer to work with the 
gentlewoman on that kind of activity. I congratulate all of my 
colleagues who have chosen to participate this evening.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Listening to the 
gentleman from Michigan is like listening to a history book. The 
gentleman reminds us how far we have come and how far we have to go.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), 
a great woman who fights every day on behalf of her constituents.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
California for participating in

[[Page H618]]

leading us in this effort, along with the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Eddie Bernice Johnson), the chairperson of the Congressional Black 
Caucus, particularly allowing for us to focus on revisiting The Color 
Line: Is Racism Still Alive?
  In listening to my colleagues, each have offered a different 
perspective; and I might, in the moments that I have, and I would like 
to be able to come back to the floor tomorrow to elaborate on the 
system of justice that concerns me greatly.
  It is important to note that we have made progress, and I do believe 
that all of us who have come here have indicated that we know that 
slavery in its technical sense is over. The Jim Crowism of the early 
1900s is over. Segregation of the deep South is claimed to be over.
  I am reminded of 1901 when the last African American Congressperson 
was drawn out of this Congress. In fact, there was no African American 
who sat in the House of Representatives, similar to what we have in the 
other body, where no African American sits now in the United States 
Senate, and we now enter into the 21st century.
  Although we can say to our colleagues and to all of America that 
there have been strides, we do have a knowledge of African American 
history. We can cite W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. We can 
cite the work of George Washington Carver. We know that the street 
light was designed by an African American. We are quite familiar with 
some of the military generals, particularly General Davis. We are 
familiar, of course, with the men and women who fight in the United 
States military and the strides they have made.
  We are familiar with the new millionaires and CEOs like Dick Parsons 
of AOL, Ken Chenault of American Express, Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae 
Corporation, and Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch; and many people would 
cite that as a fact that we have made great progress. But I would just 
bring some attention to some of the cancerous sores that continue in 
this system that really should bear attention and ask the question: Is 
it because of color?
  Is it because of color that we go to inner city schools and find the 
inequities in the funding systems where our children are not learning?
  Is it because of color that we find that if we have what we call 
alternative school systems where you put children who have been 
designated as troublesome that you will find, go there and find a large 
percentage of those being minority children?
  Is it the issue of color where you are not finding male role models 
in the public school systems or a multitude of them as principals in 
the administration where we are teaching our children?
  When we look at our juvenile justice system, and we have looked at it 
across the country. When I first came to Congress, I traveled around 
the country to visit with various States about the juvenile justice 
system. That was at the end of the time or maybe at the beginning of 
the time when our mind-set was to lock up juveniles and throw away the 
key. It was interesting when we looked at those percentages, the high 
percentage of incarcerated juveniles were African American young people 
and in large part African American males.
  In Harris County, Texas, we find a large percentage of those in 
courts who do not go home. When the judge gets to ruling, he would say, 
you go home with your parents. We are putting you on probation. We are 
giving you a warning, if you will. A large number of those are not 
African American young people. A large percentage of African American 
young people are sent to the Texas Youth Council.
  We do have an inequitable system that points to the need to address 
the issue of color. I believe as we look at the incarcerated persons in 
our Nation we will find a higher number on death row who happen to be 
African Americans who did not get a high school education. Those are 
systemic problems that point to the issue: Is race an issue?
  As I applaud the success that we have had, applaud the number of 
lawyers and physicians who have graduated from our schools, I want to 
point to the fact that those numbers have gone down.
  Lastly, I would say what we need to entertain, we need to have an 
overall, wide national discussion on this word called reparations so it 
is not stigmatized by the lack of understanding what it means. At the 
ending of slavery, it was announced that those who were freed would get 
40 acres and a mule. Some people view that as a joke, but it was 
economic compensation for the 400 years of slavery. That was never 
fulfilled.
  And although people will say I did not cause slavery, it was not me, 
I grant you that, but it is extremely important that we as a Nation not 
only express the apology to seek forgiveness for what happened to 
throngs of African Americans who are the ancestors of those who 
suffered the brutality of slavery, but it is necessary for us to have a 
fair, calm, generous discussion about what reparations really mean and 
how we can move this country forward as we did for the Japanese that 
were interned, as we did for those in the experiment.

                              {time}  1830

  Let us do that, and I believe then we will answer the question 
whether racism is alive and as well we will heal this Nation and come 
together as a unified Nation as we should.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay homage to all those great African 
American pioneers who made it possible for me to stand today. It is 
truly on their shoulders that I stand, and I am honored to carry their 
legacy of justice, freedom and equality into future generations.
  The question often arises in contemporary society, ``Is racism still 
alive?'' After all, as many would point out, African Americans and 
other minorities in this country have achieved greatness despite 
centuries of slavery, decades of discrimination, and an attitude of 
hatred that continues to permeate our society.
  The number of African American elected officials has increased by 
3,000 percent since 1963, the year of the historic March on Washington. 
Black college graduates have increased by 400 percent, and African 
American consumer power is equal to that of more than 200 countries, 
including Australia, Belgium and Hong Kong.
  And stories like Newsweek's coverage of the four extraordinary black 
men who head multi-national corporations--Dick Parsons of AOL Time 
Warner; Ken Chenault of American Express; Franklin Raines of Fannie 
Mae; and Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, who control 300 billion 
dollars worth of market capital and employ 300,000 people--these are 
extraordinary success stories and extraordinary statistics.
  Mr. Speaker, that might be the end of the story, but it is not. 
Today, African Americans are still under-represented in business, 
government, and higher education. African Americans are the largest 
growing AIDS population, and represent a disproportionate percentage of 
all major illnesses. Twenty-five percent of all young black males are, 
or are predicted to be, under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice 
system.
  Perhaps these statistics paint a more realistic picture of the status 
of race in America, but statistics are not enough. While racism no 
longer hides behind Jim Crow laws and restrictive covenants in housing, 
racism is unfortunately alive in America.
  Today, it hides behind the cover of public policies that disregard 
the poor; attitudes that deny access with subtlety; and ignorance that 
blinds the nation. Racism fears the outspoken greatness of academic 
pioneers like Harvard University's Cornell West, much like it feared 
the greatness of Harvard's first African American graduate, W.E.B. 
Dubois.
  When America becomes truly committed to ending racism, we will see an 
immediate end to racial profiling; an end to an educational system that 
relegates black students to inferior preparation; and a criminal 
justice policy that judges individuals by their character and their 
deeds, rather than the color of their skin. The color line must be 
visited on a regular basis--for as Cornell West reminds us, the color 
line is too significant to ignore.
  Ms. LEE. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Texas for reminding us 
in a very clear and forthright fashion of the unfinished business of 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
(Mrs. Clayton), a great woman who constantly and consistently reminds 
us of the needs of rural America and of all of those issues that 
America needs to address in each and every one of our policy decisions.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her 
leadership in calling to the attention of the American people the 
history and achievements of blacks, or African

[[Page H619]]

Americans as we label or refer to ourselves.
  The history and achievement of blacks or African Americans in the 
areas of business and wealth creation has been one of great amazement 
and achievement. I was reminded recently of a book that described the 
life of a Reverend William Washington Brown who lived in the 1880s. He 
is a former slave, and coming out of slavery he organized businesses 
throughout the Northeast and Southeast, from Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
Virginia, South Carolina, even up to Massachusetts. He organized banks, 
he organized insurance companies, stores. This is a former slave 
himself.
  He did it by organizing something called the United Lodge. He was 
establishing these lodges throughout the States. It was called the 
United True Reformers. It was the reformers who felt that you could 
bring dignity to yourself by being industrious and having wealth and 
working hard and bringing together your collective economy and owning 
something yourself. What a marvelous idea.
  This person learned to read and write after he was an adult. He 
became a minister, and he wanted to pass that on.
  We have a great history in the area of business, and so we have a lot 
to celebrate in the whole area of business ownership. There are great 
businesses now, insurance businesses now, a lot of them that we ought 
to celebrate. African American banks and ownership of those, again we 
ought to celebrate those. Those are achievements. But there are not 
enough of those opportunities.
  In my own background, my father worked for a black insurance company 
for more than 42 years. I remember my brother and I saying that we were 
going to grow up and own an insurance company. That insurance company, 
of course, we never did, but that insurance company became another 
insurance company, and now it is called the Atlanta Life Insurance 
Company. In my own State now, we have the North Carolina Mutual 
Insurance Company.
  I cite that to say there has been progress. We are acknowledging 
that. But when you examine in the full achievement and expansion and 
opportunity for business and banks and wealth, it has been minuscule. 
So the question is, if a former slave could do this early on, if it 
were not for race, then why is it that that pace has not continued?
  By the way, the story on the United True Reformers is that they found 
a way to break that up. It became too powerful. You can organize banks 
in Massachusetts and Georgia, you can have insurance companies, you can 
have people selling things for churches. If you can understand the 
power of that, the system broke that up.
  Well, the system not only breaks up businesses but also breaks up the 
wealth of land.
  I wanted to, in my last few minutes, talk about the land. You 
remember early on when we moved from slavery to freedom, there was this 
great promise, but more than that, we as African Americans were people 
of the land. We owned a lot of land. It is reported that in 1910 we had 
more than 15 million acres of land. Today, it is reported that we have 
something less than 2 million acres. I ask the question, what has 
happened from 1910 to now 2002 that indeed blacks do not have that 
land? What in the system has allowed this?
  So the question of race continues to find us in the opportunities of 
business and also in the ownership of land, some of the ways obviously 
that we are found.
  By the way, there was a wonderful series of articles by the 
Associated Press. They had a three-part series, 10 articles, and they 
examined more than 100 takers of land in 13 southern States and border 
States. They examined documents and others so that we would know that 
this was not just anecdotal evidence but really was written evidence. 
The history shows that there were different methods that were used to 
defraud or to take land from African Americans. They were, obviously, 
through intimidation, violence and even murder. That was early on. Now 
the system is a little less violent, but nevertheless the results are 
the same.
  So the results we use now is in selling the land for taxes, having 
eminent domain, petitioning the land. All of that finds a way of 
disenfranchising the many people who own land.
  I would say that the question of race is a persistent one. The 
question of race is not only in individuals but is also corporate. I 
think we need to find ways where we celebrate the history of everyone, 
and we need to find ways where this country can make sure that the 
opportunities for America is celebrated by everyone.

  I want to thank the gentlewoman for the opportunity to participate 
and to acknowledge that we have indeed made great progress. We have 
reason to celebrate that America has brought opportunity, but also it 
has many ways we can improve this for everyone.
  Ms. LEE. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for once 
again educating us and for all of her work on behalf of everyone in our 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.
  Mr. HILLIARD. Mr. Speaker, I have titled my remarks ``The Color Line 
Revisited, Is Racism Dead?''
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the question, is there still a color 
line in America?
  Mr. Speaker, when I visit the unemployment office, the persons there 
are mostly black. When I fly home on the airplanes, the persons there 
are mostly white. When I go to prisons, Mr. Speaker, most of the 
prisoners are black. When I visit our inner city schools which are 
underfunded, overcrowded and often in bad condition, the children are 
mostly black. When I visit the private academies in my district, the 
children are mostly white. When I see the victims of police violence, 
Mr. Speaker, the policemen are mostly white. The victims are mostly 
black.
  Yes, there is a color line in America. This color line is green, the 
color of money; it is red, the color of the lines drawn through black 
neighborhoods by banks; it is blue, the color of the skin of the black 
homeless freezing on side streets; it is gray, the color of prison 
bars; it is yellow, the color of the eyes of junkies in the inner 
cities.
  Mr. Speaker, yes, there is a color line. It is a line on the soul of 
America. It is a line on the mind of America. It is a line around our 
cities, around our neighborhoods and around our banks. No, it is not 
absolute as was the line of segregation. It is smeared and vague and in 
most cases denied, but it is there. It is everything except what they 
call it. But it is real. It is the line that tells the truth on 
America. It is a line that defines the heartbreak of America. It is the 
great sin of America. It is the line that splits our Nation. It is what 
it has always been. It is discrimination. Yes, it is racism.
  Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is a line in America. It is a color line. 
That line is racism. Racism is alive and flourishing.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, each year during Black History Month we honor 
the many great African American men and women, who over the course of 
our nation's history have made important and lasting contributions to 
our country and its people.
  It is also a time that we, as a people, examine our place in American 
society. Through this examination, we identify and celebrate our 
achievements, while also rededicating ourselves to overcoming those 
obstacles that still confront us.
  Here in America, people are born equal and made unequal by their 
surroundings. These conditions create a socioeconomic gap, where birth 
and inheritance breed success, while merit and hard work are frequently 
meaningless.
  It is worth noting that, more often than not, the roots of this 
socioeconomic gap have come from the seeds of racism.
  But let's assume for the sake of argument that racism is dead. I 
certainly will not claim that race makes no difference in society 
today, but this assumption will help prove a point.
  Let me first say one thing: Wealth and poverty are inherited more 
than they are earned. Because of this fact, we need to do more to 
resolve race-based inequalities within our system.
  The battle over affirmative action has been, more than anything else, 
an attempt to solve the social inequalities based on race in America.
  It is a means by which people who come from poor quality public 
schools to move up the socioeconomic ladder, whereas without such a 
mechanism, escaping the lower class is extremely difficult no matter 
how hard you work.
  But assuming racial preferences are dead, there needs to be some kind 
of remedy to ensure at least equal opportunity at success.

[[Page H620]]

  Those opposed to racial preferences claim that it is the way 
affirmative action actually equalizes the playing field that is unfair. 
But this argument only works if an alternative solution is proposed and 
enforced.
  This has not happened. So in the absence of affirmative action, the 
best solution to leveling the playing field in educational opportunity 
is to equally fund all public schools.
  All Americans should want to eliminate any barriers that 
underprivileged people now face in attempting to educate themselves and 
make a decent living.
  In the meantime, there is still something to be said for hard work. 
But at the same time, when hard work cannot save a large portion of 
society from living a lower-class lifestyle, our system of capitalism 
is failing.
  That is why it is imperative that public schools be funded equally 
and that people who can't afford college tuition can still go to 
college if they so choose.
  Capitalism relies on the theory of competition, and the hardest work 
and greatest talent paying off the most. Right now, the hardest work 
and greatest talent can get you nowhere or anywhere depending on where 
you start from.
  For a capitalist system to hold true to its ideals--and to even be 
efficient--it must allow people from all types of backgrounds to have 
the same opportunities; or else the best will not always reach the 
places where they can be most productive.
  This will never occur until we have equal funding and equal 
opportunity at all levels of our educational system.

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