[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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