[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 34 (Tuesday, February 23, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H573-H583]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           OUR POWER, OUR MESSAGE DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me thank our illustrious leader 
of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose visionary leadership is going 
to carry us into the 117th Congress.
  Congresswoman Joyce Beatty acts legislatively on her history. She is 
from Ohio, one of the major stops of the Underground Railroad. In fact, 
Cincinnati, Ohio, has one of the most monumental monuments, if you 
will, to that freedom train, that courage, of Harriet Tubman. I might 
say that our chairwoman's actions are in resemblance to Harriet Tubman. 
We are grateful for her vision.
  We will tomorrow, at the Congressional Black Caucus, unveil the 
talent of tens upon tens of members of the Congressional Black Caucus 
and lay out our legacy, Our Power, Our Message. I thank the gentlewoman 
for her leadership.
  It is as well my honor to be able to co-chair this with, if I might 
with a degree of familiarity, a brother from the Bronx. I am delighted 
that a working man's and woman's representative has come to be able to 
shine, a man who is a product of public housing, public schools, and 
public hospitals, and who had a dream of lifting up his community and 
building back a better Bronx.
  I am delighted that at 25, against all odds, he became the youngest 
elected official in New York City and the first openly LGBTQ elected 
official from the Bronx. He doesn't know that his reputation preceded 
him as a dynamic get-her-done person.
  I will repeat his motto before I begin my remarks, and that is 
Ritchie Torres' remarks and life motto is as follows: ``My motto is 
life is simple. If you do nothing, nothing will change.''
  Wow, what a piercing message for all of us, Republicans and 
Democrats, to do something good.
  His motto is: ``If you do nothing, nothing will change. We can build 
a better Bronx, and we will do it together.''
  I am delighted to coanchor with Mr. Ritchie Torres for the 117th 
Congress.


                             General Leave

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am particularly delighted to begin 
my remarks, as I continue to weave in and out tonight, and then, with 
my remarks, will yield to Mr. Torres as well.

[[Page H574]]

  This is a moment in history. Tonight, we will explore honoring our 
50-year legacy, Our Power, Our Message.
  As I was flying up today, I was very happy to find on the movie list 
on an airplane ``Good Trouble,'' the movie about John Lewis, with so 
many Members telling their story. I think I will just simply say: Good 
trouble.
  Tonight, we hope to exemplify good trouble as we honor the 50-year 
legacy of the Congressional Black Caucus and emphasize Our Power, Our 
Message. We want to be in good trouble.
  I am honored in the 117th Congress to chair the Crime, Terrorism, and 
Homeland Security Subcommittee and serve as a senior member on the 
Judiciary Committee, where, in addition to the powers of Congressional 
Black Caucus, we will seek to have justice rain down like righteous 
waters.

                              {time}  2045

  We will do that, however, with the 55 members of the Congressional 
Black Caucus, and I think our numbers are higher than that, and they 
are all on different committees. Amazing. They will pierce the seams of 
equality and justice in the 117th Congress. So we will have our past, 
but we will have our future.
  Let me briefly talk about where we were 400 years ago. Ships sailed 
from the west coast of Africa and in the process began one of mankind's 
most inhumane practices, human bondage and slavery. Approximately 4 
million Africans and their descendents were enslaved in the United 
States and colonies, that became the United States, from 1619 to 1865.
  The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily 
sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 to 1865, 
and certainly American slavery is our original sin. But tonight you 
will hear woven throughout the remarks of so many of my colleagues, how 
out of these ashes of enslaved Africans, out of the toll of death from 
those held in bondage, out of the heroes that fought in the Civil War, 
who rose up out of the south and the north and came and bled for this 
Nation, out of that death toll of American fighters who happen to be 
present and former slaves and suffered indignities, and continue until 
the end of the 1800s and into Jim Crow-ism, you will find the 
overcomers.
  You will find those who have climbed and clawed their way to 
leadership. Of course, there will be those who say there is no need for 
an apology, which is part of H.R. 40, no need for a commission to 
pierce into these ongoing disparities because you have overcome. In 
fact, this caucus was founded by overcomers, an array of talented men 
and women who themselves are the cornerstone of democracy and 
legitimacy.
  Who would ever forget the Honorable Shirley Chisholm, the first woman 
to run for the Presidency, an African-American woman, Black woman, and 
a woman to run for the Presidency, never to be daunted, never to be 
rejected, never to be denied?
  Or William L. Clay, Sr., who chaired the Education and Labor 
Committee, the first Black man, or the second, to do so.
  George W. Collins, a pioneer and powerhouse out of Chicago, Illinois.
  John Conyers, the dean of the United States Congress, and the first 
Member of Congress to hire Rosa Parks, and a Member of Congress--I 
think it is his distinction alone--to have Dr. Martin Luther King 
endorse him.
  Ron Dellums, he was a man that was told: You sit in the chair with 
Pat Schroeder, in the Armed Services Committee. We are not interested 
in you being here in the first place. And Ron Dellums rose to be chair 
of the Armed Services Committee.
  And how much of an overcomer they are: Charles Diggs, the leading man 
on Africa.
  Augustus Hawkins, the leading man on the empowerment of working 
families.
  Again, Ralph Metcalfe, one of the early pioneers of elected Black 
Members of Congress, again, out of Chicago.
  Parren Mitchell, the father of affirmative action.
  Robert C. Nix, a pioneer out of Pennsylvania.
  Charles B. Rangel, who worked his way up from the streets of Harlem 
to the U.S. Attorney's Office to then be chair of the Ways and Means 
Committee.
  Lou Stokes, a major force on the Appropriations Committee and 
healthcare in America.
  And, of course, delegate Walter E. Fauntroy, who I met in South 
Carolina with a commitment to defeat a segregationist who chaired the 
District of Columbia Committee.
  Overcomers, but each of them will say that this definition of who we 
are should not be on the few, it should be on the many. That means 
that, we, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus, stand here 
today to be able to call as our mandate, our challenge, our power, our 
message, is to be able to lift the opportunities of all African 
Americans and Black people, and people of color, as we work to ensure 
that anyone who is denied equality has us, we, the collective body 
politics, as their champion. That is what tonight is about.
  You will hear a number of descriptions of many persons, and you will 
hear the words of many of us from different parts of the country.
  Madam Speaker, I am delighted to kick-off this series of CBC Special 
Order Hours for the 117th Congress with my colleague Congressman 
Ritchie Torres (NY-15) who will serve as co-Anchor.
  Tonight, we will explore Honoring our 50 Year legacy Our Power, Our 
Message.
  As chair of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Crime, 
Terrorism and Homeland Security and a senior member of the House 
Committee on Homeland Security, and a member of the House Budget 
Committee, I clearly understand the importance of history and why we 
should take time to appreciate the path that has led us to this moment.
  Four hundred years ago, ships set sail from the west coast of Africa 
and, in the process, began one of mankind's most inhumane practices: 
human bondage and slavery.
  For two centuries, human beings--full of hopes and fears, dreams and 
concerns, ambition, and anguish--were transported onto ships like 
chattel, and the lives of many were forever changed.
  The reverberations from this horrific series of acts--a transatlantic 
slave trade that touched the shores of a colony that came to be known 
as America, and later a democratic republic known as the United States 
of America--are unknown and worthy of exploration.
  Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved 
in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 
1619 to 1865.
  The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily 
sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 through 
1865.
  American Slavery is our country's Original Sin and its existence at 
the birth of our nation is a permanent scar on our country's founding 
documents, and on the venerated authors of those documents, and it is a 
legacy that continued well into the last century.
  The framework for our country and the document to which we all take 
an oath describes African Americans as three-fifths a person.
  The infamous Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court, 
issued just a few decades later, described slaves as private property, 
unworthy of citizenship.
  And, a civil war that produced the largest death toll of American 
fighters in any conflict in our history could not prevent the 
indignities of Jim Crow, the fire hose at lunch counters, and the 
systemic and institutional discrimination that would follow for a 
century after the end of the Civil War.
  The mythology built around the Civil War has obscured our discussions 
of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a 
national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American 
history and public policy.
  While it is nearly impossible to determine how the lives touched by 
slavery could have flourished in the absence of bondage, we have 
certain datum that permits us to examine how a subset of Americans--
African Americans--have been affected by the callousness of involuntary 
servitude.
  We know that in almost every segment of society--education, 
healthcare, jobs, and wealth--the inequities that persist in America 
are more acutely and disproportionately felt in Black America.
  This historic discrimination continues: African-Americans continue to 
suffer debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships 
including but not limited to having nearly 1,000,000 black people 
incarcerated; an unemployment rate more than twice the current white 
unemployment rate; and an average of less than 1/16 of the wealth of 
white families, a disparity which has worsened, not improved over time.
  These conditions gave rise to a strong believe by Congressman Charlie 
Diggs that black members of Congress needed a way to make a difference 
by working together.

[[Page H575]]

  The idea for an organization of black elected Members of Congress 
came from Representative Charles Diggs (D-Mich.) who created the 
Democracy Select Committee (DSC) in an effort to bring black members of 
Congress together.
  Diggs noticed that he and other African American members of Congress 
often felt isolated because there were very few of them in Congress, 
and he wanted to create a forum where they could discuss common 
political challenges and interests.
  Diggs believed that ``The sooner we get organized for group action, 
the more effective we can become.''
  The DSC was an informal group that held irregular meetings and had no 
independent staff or budget, but that changed a few years later.
  As a result of court-ordered redistricting, one of several victories 
of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act joined by the force of 
the Civil Rights Movement, the number of African-American Members of 
Congress rose from nine to 13, the largest number since the end of the 
Civil War brought reconstruction that paved the way for voting rights 
for former slaves.
  The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was established in 1971 by the 
following 13 founding members:
  1. Rep. Shirley A. Chisholm (D-N.Y.);
  2. Rep. William L. Clay, Sr. (D-Mo.);
  3. Rep. George W. Collins (D-Ill.);
  4. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.);
  5. Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.);
  6. Rep. Charles C. Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.);
  7. Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Calif.);
  8. Rep. Ralph H. Metcalfe (D-Ill.);
  9. Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.);
  10. Rep. Robert N.C. Nix, Sr. (D-Pa.);
  11. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.);
  12. Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio); and
  13. Del. Walter E. Fauntroy (D-D.C.).
  Few recall that before these storied luminaries were elected to 
Congress, there were other African American Members of Congress 
immediately following the end of the Civil War who also served in this 
august body.
  1. Robert Brown ELLIOTT 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75)
  2. Jefferson Franklin LONG, 41st (1869-71)
  3. Joseph Hayne RAINEY, 41st (1869-71), 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-
75), 44th (1875-77), 45th (1877-79)
  4. Hiram Rhodes REVELS, 41st (1869-1871)
  5. Robert Carlos DE LARGE 42nd (1871-1873)
  6. Robert Brown ELLIOTT, 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75)
  7. Benjamin Sterling TURNER, 42nd (1871-1873)
  8. Josiah Thomas WALLS, 42nd (1871-73), 43rd (1873-75), 44th(1875-77)
  9. Richard Harvey CAIN, 43rd (1873-75), 45th (1877-79)
  10. John Roy LYNCH, 43rd (1873-75), 44th (1875-77), 47th (1881-83)
  11. Alonzo Jacob RANSIER, 43rd (1873-75)
  12. James Thomas RAPIER, 43rd (1873-75)
  13. Blanche Kelso BRUCE, 44th (1875-77), 45th (1877-79), 46th (1879-
81)
  14. Jeremiah HARALSON, 44th (1875-77)
  15. HYMAN, John Adams 44th (1875-77)
  16. Charles Edmund NASH, 44th (1875-77)
  At the end of reconstruction, many of these Black members of Congress 
lost their office and many others who sought elected office or 
attempted to vote in public elections lost their lives.
  It would take nearly another hundred years until a sufficient number 
of Federally elected black candidates would return to Congress.
  But as too many African Americans know, in some ways, the civil war 
has never truly ended.
  On January 6, 2021, we saw the raw, savage face of the lingering 
confederacy attempt to put a dagger into the heart of our democracy.
  On that day, every belief expressed by this preamble to the 
Constitution of the United States was at risk of being lost to the 
hands of a wellcoordinated attack hidden within the ranks of a riotous, 
murderous mob that invaded and laid siege to U.S. Capitol during the 
constitutionally required but ministerial act of counting the ballots 
submitted by the presidential electors of each state and declaring 
publicly the persons who were by their ballots elected President and 
Vice-President of the United States.
  We all knew the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election long before 
January 6, 2021 because of the transparency of each state's election 
administration and that the Joint Meeting of Congress would simply 
confirm that Joe Biden had won more than a majority of the electoral 
votes, along with winning the national popular vote by more than 7 
million votes.
  The riot came immediately after then-President Trump promoted a march 
on the Capitol and called his supporters to `stop the steal,' `never 
give up, never concede,' and to `fight like hell' during a speech that 
day, asserting that they would not `have a country anymore' if they did 
not act.
  During the breach, Members of Congress were voting to certify then-
President-elect Joe Biden's election victory, and many participants in 
the attack intended to thwart this effort.
  Violent participants, incited by the former President's rhetoric, 
injured scores of D.C. Police and U.S. Capitol Police officers--killing 
one, while four civilians also died.
  The level of violence and passions demonstrated are out of character 
for a nation that is accustomed to the peaceful transfer of power, 
especially when the results were so clear--the President had been 
soundly defeated for reelection.
  We did not appreciate how powerful a lie could be in the domain of 
social media where people can wall themselves off from alternative 
views and news.
  A nation accustomed to the peaceful transfer of power from one 
presidency to another was unprepared for the enemy within; from a Chief 
Executive who would attempt to strike at the heart of lawful authority 
to destroy the union so that he could remain in office.
  The underlying currents that led to the siege of the Capitol on 
January 6, 2021 began with the Compromise of 1876, which ended 
Reconstruction.
  We must have an account of the crimes committed and the exacting of 
justice to those whose violent acts of rebellion against the authority 
of the United States resulted in the deaths of six Americans and the 
desecration and defilement of the Citadel of Democracy.
  The injury done to the nation by white supremacists on January 6, 
2021, can be linked to the harm they have done to this nation for well 
over 100 years beginning with the end of Reconstruction.
  The withdrawal of Union troops from the defeated and seditious 
southern states in 1877 effectively put an end to Reconstruction and 
ushered in the era deconstruction of any efforts to normalize equal 
rights under law to former slaves.
  This period of American history is obscured by time and characterized 
by a willful ignorance by governments, media, and academia, of the 
scale of murder mania that gripped the South during the period before 
Jim Crow de jure segregation, when the lines were being drawn in the 
blood of black people that outlined what black people would and would 
never be allowed to do in American society.
  Before they were written into law, the `Black Codes' were shaped by a 
series of violent acts that occurred in communities large and small 
throughout the South, leading to tens of thousands of murders and 
attacks that maimed many because of arbitrary rules of social conduct 
such as a black man did not tip his hat, get off the sidewalk, spoke to 
a white person without first being spoken to, or other perceived 
slights.
  The reign of terror visited upon former slaves and their communities 
began near the end of Reconstruction and resulted in a secret history 
of the United States that almost erased the gains made by former slaves 
during the period 1865-1876 that included over 1,500 elected offices 
held throughout the South.
  There were former slaves elected to serve in the 41st and 42nd 
Congresses of the United States, most of whom were denied reelection to 
office once Jim Crow laws limited access to voting for former slaves.
  It was unnatural for black communities to have gone silent in the 
body politic after the strides made by newly freed slaves in engaging 
in political discourse but that silence was caused by the tens of 
thousands of singular and mass murders and lynchings that occurred 
after the end of Reconstruction and continued well into the 20th 
Century.
  The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that killed hundreds of blacks is 
another example of what a mob stirred by racial amanous can do to 
African Americans who only crime was living a prosperous and 
economically independent American Dream.
  African American history has a long, painful and bloody path that 
clearly exhibits how violent the Confederacy was, and we have fought a 
cold civil war for over 156 years, which today is on the verge of 
turning hot.
  Evidence of the desperation of black people to escape the drudgery of 
the south is evident by the greatest self migration of people within 
the United States known as the Great Migration, which saw the 
relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural 
South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 
1970.
  The push to leave family and communities in the south was motivated 
by a deep desire to escape the yoke of the cold civil war; and the pull 
to go to other parts of the nation was a chance to live free of fear, 
which translated into black people who were allowed to pursue the 
American Dream.
  This is why for millions of Americans it was shameful, painful and a 
disgrace that the Confederate battle flag was paraded in the Capitol of 
the United States by Trump's motley band of disloyalists, something 
that hundreds of

[[Page H576]]

thousands of true patriots gave the last full measure of devotion to 
prevent in the crucible years of the civil war from 1861 to 1865.
  The lynchings, beatings, rapes, burnings, joined with roadblocks to 
advancements that would afford African American people basic human 
rights such as fair wages, food, shelter, education, economic 
opportunity, healthcare, due process and equal treatment under the law, 
were denied for much of our history.
  The goals of this cold civil war were simple: it was to end or 
frustrate any effort by society to create a world where black people 
are free and have full rights as citizens of the United States.
  The threat of a hot civil war comes from the majority of Americans 
accepting that African Americans have a place in America, and a right 
to pursue the American Dream.
  The shift in American values and views regarding race have come very 
slowly with advances and setbacks until the passage of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 created space and time to 
reestablish voting rights for black voters that continues to be under 
threat.
  In this latter respect, the Insurrection of January 6 sought to 
duplicate the Compromise of 1876 because in both cases adherents of 
white supremacy sought to retain and monopolize political power by 
disenfranchising and disempowering millions of black Americans, 
throughout the South in 1876 and in the urban centers of Pennsylvania, 
Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia in 2020.
  The threat of a hot civil war stems from the fear of white 
supremacists that a growing majority of Americans accept that African 
Americans have an equal right and entitlement to the blessings of 
liberty because they are full members of the American political 
community.
  January 6, 2021, was not the first time that white supremacists 
attacked to overthrow duly elected white and black public officials. In 
1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina and again in Colfax, Louisiana in 
1873, the election of diverse slates of statewide candidates to public 
office triggered violent white mobs to attack and murder newly elected 
officials.
  The Colfax Massacre, sometimes referred to euphemistically as the 
Colfax Riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, 
Louisiana, the seat of Grant Parish, where between 62 and 153 black men 
were murdered by racist white vigilantes calling themselves a militia.
  Three white men also died in the confrontation, with at least one 
said to have been shot by his own ally.
  In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana 
and local offices, a group of white Democrats armed with rifles and a 
small cannon, overpowered Republican freedmen and black state militia 
occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax.
  Most of the freedmen were murdered after they surrendered; nearly 50 
were killed later that night after being held prisoners for several 
hours.
  Estimates of the number of dead have varied, ranging from 62 to 153. 
The exact number of black victims was difficult to determine because 
many bodies were thrown into the Red River or mass gravesites.
  Reconstruction ended in 1877 and by 1898 the protection afforded 
newly freed slaves to participate as equal citizens in casting ballots 
in public elections that allowed for the election of black and white 
candidates ceased to exist.
  White supremacists who ran as candidates in 1898, but lost their 
elections used mob violence to take the offices from the duly elected 
officials, sparking the Wilmington insurrection, also known as the 
Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Coup of 1898.
  The similarities between what happened on January 6, and the events 
of 1898 are striking in that both featured a mass riot and insurrection 
carried out by white supremacists.
  The mass riot carried out by white supremacists on January 6, 2021, 
sought to overturn an election where black voters played a significant 
role in electing Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice 
President of the United States.
  Furthermore, to add injury to their racist sensibilities, the 
preceding day, January 5, 2021, the state of Georgia elected its first 
African American and Jewish U.S. Senators during a special election.
  Today, we see the potential for the 1898 level of violence against 
the entire Congress, which has become the most diverse deliberative 
body in our nation's history.
  Since the attack, the FBI has identified more than 400 individuals 
out of an estimated 800 who illegally entered the Capitol on January 6, 
2021. As of January 27, 2021, the FBI's Washington Field Office has 
confirmed that more than 150 criminal cases against those individuals 
have been filed.
  Although some reporting initially contradicted Justice Department 
officials' public statements regarding aggressive efforts to charge all 
those involved in the criminal activity, acting U.S. Attorney Michael 
Sherwin reaffirmed the Department's commitment on January 26, 2021, 
stating ``[r]egardless of the level of criminal conduct, we're not 
selectively targeting or just trying to charge the most significant 
crime . . . [i]f a crime was committed we are charging you, whether you 
were outside or inside the Capitol.''
  The long and blood history of white supremacy requires an approach 
that holds individuals accountable for their actions as a means of 
ending the lure of the mob as a tool of violence against targets of 
interest.
  Reports that cite that over a hundred current or former members of 
the military were involved in the riot at the Capitol are shocking to 
some.
  Unfortunately, this aspect of white supremacist violence was evident 
by violence committed by Proud Boys and Boogaloo adherents made clear 
their objectives.
  My efforts to focus the attention of the military on this link was 
evident in an amendment I offered to the NDAA for FY2021 that was 
adopted.
  This Jackson Lee Amendment included in the House version of the NOAA 
directed the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress the extent, if 
any, of the threat to national security posed by domestic terrorist 
groups and organizations motivated by a belief system of white 
supremacy, such as the Boogaloo and Proud Boys extremists is reflected 
in the Conference bill.
  The NDAA conference identified that the FBI is under statutory 
obligation, established by Section 5602 of the NDAA FY 2020 (Public Law 
116-92), to complete a report that would better characterize the 
domestic terrorist threat by requiring the FBI and the Department of 
Homeland Security in consultation with the National Counterterrorism 
Center (NCTC), to produce a set of comprehensive reports over 5 years.
  The report is to include: a strategic intelligence threat internal to 
the United States; metrics on the number and type of incidents, coupled 
with resulting investigations, arrests, prosecutions and analytic 
products, copies of the execution of domestic terrorism investigations; 
detailed explanations of how the FBI, DHS and NCTC prioritize the 
domestic terrorism threats and incident; and descriptions regarding the 
type and regularity of training provided by the FBI, DHS, or NCTC to 
other Federal, State and local law enforcement.
  The conferees noted that the report has not been delivered to the 
appropriate committees, and they urged the FBI Director to deliver the 
report without delay.
  The Jackson Lee Amendment to the NDAA FY 2021 sought the same 
information that is required under the NDAA FY 2020 because of the 
threat posed by accelerationists and militia extremists who comprise a 
range of violent anti-government actors, movements and organizations, 
some of which branch out of decades-old ideologies and others of which 
are relatively new has led to violent engagement of law enforcement.
  My concern is that in the aftermath of a historic national election, 
the activity of violence influencers like Boogaloo Boys or Proud Boys 
will increase and lead to attacks becoming more frequent.
  In 2018, we saw too many instances of violent extremists searching 
for opportunities to sow violence and disrupt democratic processes.
  Boogaloo and Proud Boys are targeting constitutionally protected 
activity for cooption or to provide cover for attacks.


          honoring our 50-year legacy: our power, our message

           List of Unfinished Business in the 117th Congress:

  The work of the 117th Congress is just begun, but the list of 
unfinished business is long:
  Ending the COVID-19 by Ending Healthcare Disparities;
  Passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act;
  Criminal Justice Reform;
  Funding to complete the restoration of a safe drinking water system 
for Flint, Michigan;
  Enactment of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act;
  Immigration Reform.
  The United States is a work in progress, as stated in the preamble to 
the Constitution:

       We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more 
     perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic 
     Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the 
     general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to 
     ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this 
     Constitution for the United States.

  African Americans have fought in every war this nation has faced 
knowing that they were not afforded the same rights and freedoms of 
white Americans.
  We comprise thirteen percent of the population of the United States, 
and yet experience a higher rate of incarceration, health disparities, 
more vulnerable to economic slowdowns, and even more likely to get 
COVID-19 and have much worse health outcomes.

[[Page H577]]

  Disparities tell the story of living while black in America.
  Disparities in maternity mortality, in the care we receive from 
doctors when we are in pain caused by Sickle Cell anemia, or present 
with serious symptoms like Ebola as was the case with Thomas Eric 
Duncan who went to a Dallas Area hospital for treatment.
  Disparities in the spread of COVID-19 are killing Black people at a 
much higher rate than our percentage of the population in states 
reporting demographic data.
  Since that time, we have seen a pandemic sweep the country, taking 
more than 500,000 souls in its wake and devastating the African 
American community.
  According to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease 
Control, Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one and a half 
times higher than that of white people, are hospitalized at a rate 
nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the 
disease.
  Interestingly, a recent peer-reviewed study from Harvard Medical 
School suggests that reparations for African Americans could have cut 
COVID-19 transmission and infection rates both among Blacks and the 
population at large.
  Their analysis, based on Louisiana data, determined that if 
reparations payments had been made before the COVID-19 pandemic, 
narrowing the wealth gap, COVID-19 transmission rates in the state's 
overall population could have been reduced by anywhere from 31 percent 
to 68 percent.
  I include in the Record an article detailing the results of a Harvard 
Study that found that reparations for slavery could have reduced COVID-
19 infections and deaths in US from between 31-68 percent.
  There are disparities in every aspect of African American life and 
death.
  Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America 
increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million.
  Today, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the world's 
population and has 21 percent of the world's prisoners.
   1 in every 37 adults in the United States, or 2.7 percent of the 
adult population, is under some form of correctional supervision.
  In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent of 
the total 6.8 million correctional population.
  African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of 
whites.
  The imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of 
white women.
  Nationwide, African American children represent 32 percent of 
children who are arrested,
  42 percent of children who are detained, and 52 percent of children 
whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court.
  Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 
percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all 
incarcerated people in 2015.
  In African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same 
rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 
percent.
  We will have special orders throughout this Congress that can delve 
more deeply in the aspect of live in America through discussions on 
H.R. 40.
  In 1989, Congressman John Conyers introduced ``The Commission to 
Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, which later 
became known as H.R. 40, in remembrance of the Gen. Sherman's 1865 
Special Field Order No. 15 to redistribute 400,000 acres of formerly 
Confederate owned coastal land in South Carolina and Florida, 
subdivided into 40 acre plots.
  In 2019, I reintroduced an updated H.R. 40 entitled ``Commission to 
Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,'' 
noting that in the 30 years since the bill's original introduction, 
sufficient evidence has been assembled to not just study but also 
develop proposals for a remedy.
  H.R. 40 allows for the first constructive scholarly conversation on 
race that is clearly needed in the U.S. today and the ability to take a 
moment in 250 years for a full discussion or analysis of economic, 
political, psychological, scientific, and sociological effects of 
slavery in the U.S. It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and 
inhumanity of slavery in the U.S. and establishes a commission to study 
and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the 
institution of slavery, its subsequent racial and economic 
discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these 
forces on living African Americans. The Commission is also charged to 
make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies.
  H.R. 40 follows the successful model of the reparations campaign for 
Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. The campaign began with a 1980 
congressional bill establishing a commission to investigate the 
internment, evaluate and consider the amount and form reparations would 
take, and make recommendations to the Congress for remedy. Based on the 
Commission's findings, President Reagan signed into law the Civil 
Liberties Act of 1988. The bill formally apologized to Japanese-
Americans, authorized the payment of $20,000 to each Japanese-American 
detention camp survivor; instituted a trust fund to educate Americans 
about the suffering of the Japanese-Americans; and issued pardons to 
all those who resisted detention camp internment.
  The nation over the last twelve months has faced a crucible of 
suffering, death, and disease that has taken too many lives, devastated 
the economy, and put millions at risk of greater hardship due to the 
death of a loved one, unemployment, loss of health care or forgone 
education opportunities.
  Hidden in these numbers are the health disparities that have plagued 
African Americans for generations.
  Today, with a heavy heart our nation sadly marks the loss of 500,000 
American lives to the coronavirus: an unimaginable human toll in our 
modern era of medical and technological advances. These deaths are of 
staggering proportions and cause incomprehensible sadness, but we 
cannot think of them as the end of COVID-19. As we have learned COVID-
19 can surge again claiming even more lives. This is why we cannot be 
complacent or accepting of so much death without continuing to fight.
  Every life lost is a profound tragedy and earth-shattering moment in 
the lives of families, neighborhoods, and communities that touch each 
of us in countless ways as we mourn and console our family members, 
coworkers, neighbors and friends.
  Today, I joined my colleagues of the House to observe a moment a 
silence on the steps of the Capitol for the 500,000 lives lost. Members 
of Congress joined Americans in prayer for the lives lost or devastated 
by this vicious virus. As we pray, we must commit ourselves, in memory 
of those we have lost, to wearing face coverings, observing social 
distance, washing of hands-and most importantly getting the vaccine 
when it is our time to do so as a pledge to all who have been taken 
from us far too soon that we will act swiftly to put an end to this 
pandemic and to stem the suffering felt by so many.
  My commitment is to save lives and also livelihoods through public 
and personal action. As Texans work to overcome the tragic winter 
disaster that befell the state last week, I wrote to President Biden 
asking that he grant the state's request for a Presidential Disaster 
Declaration, which he did and today FEMA is on the ground providing 
water delivery, food distribution, and other vital services to help 
Texans get back on their feet.
  I also encourage those who have lost health insurance during the 
economic crisis created by COVID-19 pandemic to take advantage of the 
extended enrollment period for getting health insurance through 
healthcare.gov, which is open until May 15, 2021. Currently, 36 states 
are using HealthCare.gov. Since President Biden announced the creation 
of the Special Enrollment Period for HealthCare.gov, all 14 states and 
D.C. that have their own state-based marketplaces have announced that 
they would also have Special Enrollment Periods.
  Questions about how justice is served to different communities in our 
nation came into stark focus with the horrifying killing of George 
Floyd on May 25, 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer, which shocked 
and awakened the moral consciousness of the nation.
  Untold millions have seen the terrifying last 8 minutes and 46 
seconds of life drained from a black man, George Floyd, taking his last 
breaths face down in the street with his neck under the knee of a 
police officer who, along with his three cohorts, was indifferent to 
his cries for help and pleas that he ``can't breathe.''
  In direct response, civil protests against police brutality occurred 
in cities large and small all across the nation.
  It is clear that the times that we find ourselves in demand action, 
and that is precisely what my colleagues in the Congressional Black 
Caucus, on the House Judiciary Committee, and Congressional Democrats 
did by introducing H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 in 
the 116th Congress.
  The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act will be reintroduced this 
Congress to complete the work this nation has already begun in bringing 
justice to the criminal justice system.
  And every day, we use our power and our message to lift up these 
important issues that are facing our nation, and we ask those who are 
listening and watching to make these efforts your own.
  Criminal Justice Reform is a pressing issue that Congress must 
address.
  As Judge Learned Hand observed, ``If we are to keep our democracy, 
there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.''
  Reforming the criminal justice system so that it is fairer and 
delivers equal justice to all persons is one of the great moral 
imperatives of our time.

[[Page H578]]

  For reform to be truly meaningful, we must look at every stage at 
which our citizens interact with the system--from policing in our 
communities and the first encounter with law enforcement, to the 
charging and manner of attaining a conviction, from the sentence 
imposed to reentry and collateral consequences.
  House Democrats, led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold 
Nadler and myself, as Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, 
Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, have accepted and 
embraced the challenge of reforming the criminal justice system and 
developed many innovative legislative remedies to correct many of the 
most glaring inequities and racial disparities in the most critical 
areas of the system.
  This is an important topic and one that Congress must turn its 
attention to with urgency and unity of effort to:
  address the harms caused;
  get an accounting of what happened;
  understand how the water was poisoned;
  make the lives of people damaged by this tragedy whole;
  find justice for those lives that may have been lost; and
  determine and provide for the long-term health needs of those 
impacted.
  Today, the water in Flint, Michigan is not safe to drink and we have 
no concrete answer on when it may be safe to drink in the future.
  Flint, Michigan like so many communities across the nation really 
felt the brunt of the financial crisis created by the abuse of new home 
lending practices and deceptive investment schemes that hid the 
weaknesses in the economy until the great recession spread across the 
nation beginning in late 2008.
  The financial damage done to communities like Flint in the form of 
steep declines in property values, which caused significant declines in 
property tax income.
  This was not just Flint's problem, but a national reality--for 
financially strapped cities, towns, school boards, and municipal 
governments who rely on Congress to fund all 12 Congressional 
appropriations bills to provide them with much needed revenue to meet 
the needs of their citizens.
  In the 51 years since its passage on August 6, 1965, the Voting 
Rights Act has safeguarded the right of Americans to vote and stood as 
an obstacle to many of the more egregious attempts by certain states 
and local jurisdictions to game the system by passing discriminatory 
changes to their election laws or administrative policies.
  In signing the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon 
Johnson said:

       ``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by 
     man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible 
     walls which imprison men because they are different from 
     other men.''

  But on June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. 
Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b) of the VRA, 
and paralyzed the application of the VRA's Section 5 preclearance 
requirements, which protect minority voting rights where voter 
discrimination has historically been the worst. Since 1982, Section 5 
has stopped more than 1,000 discriminatory voting changes in their 
tracks, including 107 discriminatory changes in Texas.
  Although much progress has been made with regard to Civil Rights, 
there is still much work to be done in order to prevent systemic voter 
suppression and discrimination within our communities, and we must 
remain ever vigilant and oppose schemes that will abridge or dilute the 
precious right to vote.
  H.R. 885, `VOTING RIGHTS AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2015,' of which I am an 
original co-sponsor, repairs the damage done to the Voting Rights Act 
by the Supreme Court decision and is capable of winning majorities in 
the House and Senate and the signature of the President.
  This legislation replaces the old `static' coverage formula with a 
new dynamic coverage formula, or `rolling trigger,' which effectively 
gives the legislation nationwide reach because any state and any 
jurisdiction in any state potentially is subject to being covered if 
the requisite number of violations are found to have been committed.
  For millions of Americans, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is sacred 
treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary 
Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish 
extraordinary things.
  I want to thank my colleagues, Chairwoman Beatty of the CBC, and my 
co-Anchor, Representative Torres, for participating in this Special 
Order on these important topics.

 [From the Harvard Civil Rights--Civil Liberties Law Review, June 10, 
                                 2020]

                           Why We Can't Wait

                             (By Mo Light)

       In May 1920, Henry Scott, a middle-aged Negro, was working 
     as a Pullman porter in Florida when a mob seized and lynched 
     him because a white woman said he insulted her.[1] Scott said 
     that she had asked for his help arranging her seat on a train 
     while he was busy arranging another woman's seat. He asked 
     her to wait. The white woman called the police and told them 
     that Scott had insulted her. From there the story followed 
     the usual lynching pattern: A deputy sheriff arrested Scott 
     and then a white mob ``overpowered'' the deputy sheriff and 
     took Scott from police custody. The mob then riddled Scott 
     with ``forty or fifty bullets.''[2] The jury returned the 
     typical verdict: not guilty.[3]
       Recently, another middle-aged Black man was working when he 
     was seized and lynched. George Floyd was lynched by police 
     officers after a store employee accused him of buying 
     cigarettes with counterfeit money. He protested to the store 
     employee that this was not true. But the teenage employee 
     refused to believe him and proceeded to call the police. From 
     there the story followed the all-too-common policing pattern: 
     Police officers who swore an oath to serve and protect 
     lynched a Black man while their colleagues stood by in 
     silence.
       Two stories, one hundred years apart. In this time, America 
     has shot forward scientifically and technologically. America 
     put a man on the moon, found vaccines and cures for deadly 
     diseases, invented the computer, and revolutionized 
     technology. But throughout this time, America has left Black 
     Americans behind in the shadows. For Black Americans, too 
     little has changed in the last sixty or so years. They are 
     still dreaming that one day they will be judged by the 
     content of their character and not the color of their skin, 
     all while living through a constant nightmare. Henry Scott is 
     George Floyd and George Floyd is Henry Scott. And that is why 
     we can't wait.
       Black Americans have been and will continue to be severely 
     disappointed with the slow pace of change. Before the Civil 
     War, Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, Frederick Douglass, and 
     many other Negro abolitionists and leaders were told to wait. 
     After Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 
     1863, slaves still toiled the fields through at least 
     1865.[4]
       The government promised the Negro ``forty acres and a 
     mule'' but instead gave the Negro ``separate but equal.''[5] 
     The Negro knew that in 1954 the Supreme Court called for the 
     desegregation of schools ``with all deliberate speed'' but 
     was met with all deliberate delay.[7] The Voting Rights Act 
     of 1965 has all but failed to live up to its potential.[7] In 
     2020, police officers are still disproportionality killing 
     Black people.[8] If we respond to this oppression with the 
     same methods we have used in the past, we will sing the same 
     chants, march through the same streets, and demand the same 
     justice in 20, 40, 60 years. For over 100 years we have heard 
     ``change will come.'' Words that consistently ring hallow. 
     The People must do everything they can to prevent another 
     innocent person from dying at the hands of the police or 
     white supremacists.
       The idea that the People must engage radical methods of 
     change, change that accepts all action except violence as 
     legitimate, has generated a great deal of apprehension to 
     many Americans. But lest we forget our history, one should be 
     reminded that America's birth and continued existence is a 
     never-ending dance with radicalness and extremism. Ideas that 
     were once shunned as too radical are now lauded as examples 
     for others. Was not Patrick Henry an extremist: ``Give me 
     liberty or give me death.''[9] Was not the Declaration of 
     Independence radical when it stated that it is ``the Right of 
     the People to alter or abolish'' the government if it became 
     destructive to equality.[10] Our Founding Fathers listed in 
     the Declaration the King of England's crimes that spurred and 
     legitimatized the American Revolution--including the Crown's 
     ``protect[ion] of [his soldiers], by a mock Trial, from 
     punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the 
     Inhabitants of these States.''[11] Was it not Thomas 
     Jefferson who wrote to William Smith and said, ``what country 
     can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from 
     time to time that their people preserve the spirit of 
     resistance?''[12] Was not Abraham Lincoln called radical when 
     he said, ``I believe this government cannot endure, 
     permanently half slave and half free.''[13] And was not Dr. 
     King considered one of the most radical and most hated men in 
     America?[14] History has been kind to these men and so, too, 
     will history be kind to us.
       Black Americans and their allies can't wait for perfect 
     adherence from their movement on how one should engage in 
     radical change. ``No revolution is executed like a 
     ballet[,]'' said Dr. King, ``[i]ts steps and gestures are not 
     neatly designed and precisely performed.''[15] There will be 
     violent elements in every revolution, but the majority of 
     those revolting are doing so nonviolently. And more 
     importantly, the oppressor is responsible for the violence of 
     the oppressed. The oppressor is responsible for the American 
     Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement. The Revolutions of 
     1848 were formed by ad hoc groups of the middle-class, 
     workers, and commoners. They did not act with perfect 
     discipline, but we nonetheless celebrate those radicals' 
     tenacity and vision.[16]
       The necessity of Black Americans and their allies forming a 
     movement for radical change is difficult for many to swallow. 
     It is difficult because too many Americans do not understand 
     the centrality of radical change to American history. They 
     sit in the shade of trees they did not plant, warm themselves 
     by fires they did not light, and drink from wells they did 
     not dig.[17] They profit from persons they do not know, and 
     they build upon

[[Page H579]]

     foundations that they did not lay.[18] But Black Americans 
     know this difficult truth: radical change is the only 
     acceptable change. They are keenly aware that their struggle 
     for equality and justice is a never-ending battle. Black 
     Americans are resentful because after all these years they 
     must constantly push for change or be pushed back into the 
     shadows. Black Americans are the seeds that go unwatered and 
     still rise. The soil not toiled but still fertile. You can't 
     ask us to be patient with change anymore or to play by your 
     rules because Black Americans have been patient from John 
     Castor to Henry Scott to George Floyd to ---- .
       [1] Ralph Ginzburg, 100 Years of Lynching 130-31 (1962).
       [2]Id.
       [3]Id.
       [4] Shennette Garrett-Scott et al., ``When Peace Come'': 
     Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth, 76 Black History 
     Bulletin 1, 19-23 (2013).
       [5] Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 552 (1896).
       [6] Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait 3 (1963).
       [7] See Shelby Cty., Ala. v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
       [8] See Deidre McPhillips, Deaths From Police Harm 
     Disproportionately Affect People of Color, U.S. News & World 
     Report (June 3, 2020) https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/
2020-o6-o3/data-show-deaths-from-police-violence-
disproportionately-affect-people-of-color.
       [9] William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of 
     Patrick Henry 123 (1817).
       [10] The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).
       [11] Id.
       [12] Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Smith (Nov. 
     13, 1787), in Quotes by and about Thomas Jefferson (1998).
       [13] Abraham Lincoln, A House Divided Speech at 
     Springfield, Illinois (June 16, 1858).
       [14] Tavis Smiley, The One Single Thing Donald Trump and 
     Martin Luther King, Jr. Have in Common, Time (Dec. 1, 2017, 
     11:09 AM), https://time.com/5042070/donald-trump-martin-
luther-king-mlk/.
       [15] King, supra note 6, at 140.
       [16] See Melvin Kranzberg, 1848: A Turning Point? xii, 
     xvii-xviii (1962).
       [17] See Deuteronomy 6:10-12 (King James) (adapted by Rev. 
     Dr. Peter S. Raible).
       [18] Id.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the 
distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres).
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to rise to 
celebrate the 50th anniversary of an institution like no other, the 
Congressional Black Caucus.
  I am honored to be in the presence of fierce and formidable public 
servants like the CBC chair, Joyce Beatty, and today's anchor, 
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
  Madam Speaker, I thank her for those inspiring words. I thank her for 
reminding us of the long and rich history of the CBC, a history that 
continues to inspire us all.
  Madam Speaker, I am also honored to be here in the presence of my 
brother, Mondaire Jones. You know, in the history of the United States 
Congress there have only been about 163 Black Members of Congress, and 
none of them were openly LGBTQ until the election of Mondaire Jones and 
myself. So I am proud to join my brother in making history in the 117th 
Congress.
  You know, before I was Congressman Ritchie Torres, before I was 
Councilman Ritchie Torres, I am and will always be the son of the most 
powerful woman I know, Debra Bosolet, my mother. And the most important 
lesson that my mother taught me is never forget where you come from. 
Never forget where your roots lie. And my roots are in the Bronx. Even 
when I leave the Bronx for Washington, D.C., the Bronx never leaves me.
  I was born, bred, and battle-tested in the boogie down Bronx. And I 
have the high honor of representing New York's 15, the south Bronx, 
which for too long has been ground zero for racially concentrated 
poverty. The unemployment rate in the south Bronx could be as high as 
25 percent, comparable to the joblessness of the Great Depression.
  More than half the residents in the Bronx pay more than half their 
income toward their rent, and that is before you factor in the cost of 
prescription drugs and utilities, and food, and all the bare 
necessities of life. And even though the south Bronx has long been 
known to be the poorest congressional district in America, COVID-19 has 
shown the south Bronx to be the essential congressional district.
  It is the home of essential workers who put their lives at risk 
during the peak of the pandemic so that most of us could safely shelter 
in place. And our mission, as the CBC, should be to give those 
essential workers, who are overwhelmingly women of color, a fighting 
chance at a decent and dignified life.
  You know, I never thought as a poor kid of color from the Bronx that 
I would embark on a journey that would take me from public housing in 
the Bronx to the people's House in Washington, D.C. And I never thought 
that as a Congress Member I would live through an insurrection against 
the U.S. Capitol.
  Now, on January 6, we were reminded that there are two competing 
realities that define America. There is the reality of multiracial 
democracy. America is slowly emerging as a multiracial, multiethnic, 
LGBTQ-inclusive democracy. Seventy percent of the Democratic Caucus 
consists of people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ Caucus.
  But then there is the reality of white supremacy, which reared its 
ugly head on January 6. And, for me, the scene on the U.S. Capitol was 
not simply an attack on a physical structure, it was an attack on the 
very idea of America as a multiracial democracy. And it is that vision 
of America that, we, as the CBC, are charged with defending.
  And despite the overwhelming shock and despair that I felt on January 
6, Madam Speaker, I have hope. The inauguration was reason for hope. 
The image of Kamala Harris, a Black woman in the Vice-Presidency, being 
sworn in by Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court, is a 
powerful encapsulation of how far we have come, of how much we have 
achieved. And that moment reminds us that the future of our country 
does not belong to white supremacy. The future of our country belongs 
to multiracial democracy.
  And the Congressional Black Caucus will continue to be at the 
forefront of making America the more perfect multiracial union that it 
ought to be. In the words of the CBC chair: Our Power, Our Message.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentleman very much 
for his powerful words and his very prominent focus on the idea that 
you are from the Bronx, but the spirit of the Bronx cannot be taken 
from you, and that your commitment and your assessment of this country 
will be defined in your way, not in the way of white supremacists, 
domestic terrorists, or insurrectionists.
  Madam Speaker, I think more than ever he has captured an important 
moment by saying he has hope, and that is what the Congressional Black 
Caucus represents for the millions of Americans that we represent. He 
is right, our constituency is multicultural, they come from many 
different perspectives, they are Black, they are African American--as 
they may be desired to be called--they are Latinx, they are Hispanic, 
they are Anglo, they are White, they are Southeast Asian, they are 
Asian Pacific, they are LGBTQ, and they are varied. That is what we are 
here today to stand for.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones), a 
distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, among other 
committees, and a scholar in his own right, a lawyer, and someone who 
has been able to be trained in the ways of the law, but whose heart is 
vested in the ways of justice. I am delighted to yield to my colleague 
for his time on the floor in this wonderful momentous occasion.
  Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished co-chair of this 
incredible Special Order sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus 
for those very kind words.
  I will say, as someone who has spent most of his life following the 
work of this Black Caucus, it is an honor to finally join the legends, 
the luminaries who helped to inspire my own run for the United States 
Congress. Thank you.
  Madam Speaker, I want to thank the CBC for holding this hour to 
reflect on Black history. I want to share, in particular, the story of 
a young lawyer who came to the village of Hillburn in Rockland County, 
New York, during his fight to desegregate our public schools.

                              {time}  2100

  Like many places in 1943, the Village of Hillburn had a main school 
for White children. It was called the Hillburn School. And it had a 
school for children

[[Page H580]]

of color without a library, a playground, or indoor plumbing. That was 
called the Brook School.
  But our elders did not accept this. They fought back. Parents of the 
Brook School children organized and, with the help of a young attorney 
with the NAACP's legal defense fund, they sued the district. With the 
help of their lawyer, the parents of the Brook School children won 
their fight against segregation in a case that helped to lay the 
groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education 11 years later.
  Who was this young lawyer who came to the Village of Hillburn?
  He was the man who would later become our Nation's first Supreme 
Court Justice who was Black: Thurgood Marshall.
  I am moved by the story because it shows how Black history creates 
Black futures, how the courage and resistance of the Black leaders of 
years past are the reason a poor Black kid from Rockland County now 
stands in this special Chamber as the United States Congress Member 
representing that same school district today.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Jones so very 
much for that powerful statement. A powerful statement, obviously, a 
lawyer's lawyer to bring to our attention the great leadership of 
Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall, 
from a lawyer whom we know will continue to promote justice now as a 
legislator.
  Madam Speaker, I want to take a moment to just put in the Record 
really the historical description of the Congressional Black Caucus.
  Since its establishment in 1971, the Congressional Black Caucus has 
been committed to using the full constitutional power, statutory 
authority, and financial resources of the Federal Government to ensure 
that Black Americans and other marginalized communities in the United 
States have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
  As part of this commitment, the CBC has fought in the past 50 years 
to empower citizens and address their legislative concerns by nursing a 
policy agenda that is inclusive, pragmatic, effective, and resonates 
with the American people.
  Just for a moment, I would like to comment on the dangerous 
interrelatedness of race and the insurrectionist day of January 6.
  We are on the floor because we have a unique history. We are a 
multiranged people and a multicultural people. We are individuals whose 
heritage is intertwined with other backgrounds. We are African 
Americans. We are Caribbean Americans. And in terms of African 
Americans, we are Caribbean Blacks, if you will. We come from all over 
the world, but we come to America and we are described by a singular 
history.
  And if we have come with a singular history, I think it is important 
to intertwine what happened on January 6. Shockingly, Madam Speaker, 
those who came to object--so they say--to the duly qualified and 
legitimate election of President Joe Biden and, of course, Vice 
President Harris, they, of course, came allegedly with that 
proposition. But, at the same time, I am stunned by the words of a 
police officer by the name of Mr. Harry Dunn--courageous and brave with 
so many others--who indicated: The rioters called me the n-word dozens 
of times.
  So here we are 50 years celebrating the Congressional Black Caucus. 
Here we are defenders of democracy. Many of our Members are former 
members of the United States military, having gone into battle, or our 
family members have. Many fell in as early a war as World War I, World 
War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and 
other wars in between. We shed our blood for this country.
  And the so-called people who came and said they just wanted some 
democracy, they believed that their candidate won, but they took enough 
time to call the sons and daughters of enslaved Africans, who wear the 
uniform defending democracy, the n-word.
  They took time to carry a fake flag, calling it the Confederate flag 
when it is a symbol in the 1960s of the harshness and brutality of 
segregation and the Klan. They took time to bring that flag to the 
United States Congress, in the midst of the highest number of elected 
persons of color, persons who are descendants in many different ways of 
enslaved Africans.
  But here I wanted to mention Mr. Dunn's name. There were many others 
who were beaten that day. I honor them, and we will honor them as time 
goes. This night, tonight, we mention this gentleman who said most 
powerfully--Harry Dunn recalled the sickening events of January 6--when 
he says that the level of racist abuse he suffered caused him to break 
down in tears, but he was not broken. His quote was: ``Y'all failed.''
  That is my message today. All of the brutality that we may have 
experienced, which I will talk about in a moment, all of it failed. 
That is why we are here today fighting in the Education and Labor 
Committee; fighting in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee; 
fighting in the Ways and Means Committee; fighting in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee; the Judiciary; the Interior; the Armed Services 
Committee; the Oversight and Reform Committee; and the Budget 
Committee, where you will see our presence.
  We are fighting for America, but we are the conscience that drives 
the reality that there are more people to be concerned about than those 
of us in this Chamber. That there are mothers and father who work every 
day, who don't see the fruit of their labor. There are children who 
clamor for education, but it is not there.
  There are soldiers who need to have the line of hierarchy and the 
route to promotion and elevation, who don't get it. There are 
businesspersons who have brilliant ideas, but can't access the capital. 
There are incarcerated persons who are not guilty, but are still 
incarcerated.
  There are doors of college institutions closed. There are people who 
want to do better with a new house, but still, in the 21st century, are 
redlined. And there are many who want to go places and cannot go, who 
are African American.
  No, we are not complaining. We are trying to explain how much has 
been done by people who have had this kind of history. It is important 
to take note of that.
  Madam Speaker, may I have the time remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Texas has 24 minutes 
remaining.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Torres), if he will carry forth.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, as 
always, for the inspiration of words.
  Our colleague, Congressman Jones, spoke earlier of Brown v. Board of 
Education. Brown v. Board of Education was the first legal case I ever 
read. In high school, I participated in a form of legal debate known as 
moot court, which taught me how to think, read, write, and speak 
critically and artfully. I will never forget after reading Brown v. 
Board of Education how inspired I felt, those words in the field of 
education: Separate but equal is inherently unequal.
  Those words inspired me to see myself--as a young Black man--as a 
public servant and maybe one day as a Member of the United States 
Congress.
  But I have to be honest. If you had said to me 1 year ago that I 
would become a Member of Congress during an infectious disease 
outbreak, that I would witness an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol 
during the electoral college vote count, and that I would then vote to 
impeach an outgoing President who had been impeached once before, I 
would have said that sounds a lot like a movie.
  So this has been the most draining and disorienting beginning for any 
freshman class in the modern history of the United States Congress, but 
I am nevertheless honored to be here.
  January 6 is a reminder that the mission of the CBC takes on a 
renewed urgency. The Congress Member and I sit on the Homeland Security 
Committee, and one of our highest priorities is going to be 
counterterrorism. During one of our recent hearings, I made the 
observation that America has a pattern of willful blindness toward 
white supremacist extremism as a form of domestic terror.
  Even though the statistics have been clear that white supremacist 
extremism has been the dominant driver of violence in the United States 
for decades, the U.S. Government did not designate a white supremacist 
group as a

[[Page H581]]

terrorist organization until 2020. 2020. Never mind the massacre 
against African Americans, against Latinos, and against members of the 
LGBTQ community. It took the Federal Government until 2020 to finally 
recognize white supremacy as a form of domestic terrorism.
  I am often asked: Whom do you admire in history?
  The gentlewoman brought up the Underground Railroad, and I am a great 
admirer of Harriet Tubman, who, as the architect of the Underground 
Railroad, is America's Moses. She was a genuine liberator of an 
enslaved people.
  I also have deep admiration for Ida B. Wells, who was alone as a 
journalist in standing up to the campaign of domestic terrorism and 
lynchings against African Americans. And we have to draw from the 
legacy of Ida B. Wells and renew our commitment to fighting domestic 
terrorism in our own time.
  Madam Speaker, I look forward to joining the gentlewoman in that 
fight and learning from her.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, my coanchor has very powerfully 
captured the many heroes in our community, historical heroes as well, 
and heroes who pushed against the edge, walked right up to the line, 
never failed to be courageous, never failed to work on behalf of people 
who were voiceless and powerless.
  Harriet Tubman was that woman. She was General Moses, and she told 
slaves that it was not going to be their task to stop along the 
railroad, they were going to get to their destination--and I guess she 
was a little harsh--dead or alive.
  That is the push of the Congressional Black Caucus. We are not 
violent people, so I won't say dead or alive. But we are consistently 
engaged in pushing the envelope, pushing the margins, and pushing the 
conscience of this Congress led certainly over a huge number of years 
by the late John Robert Lewis and John Conyers, who headed the 
Judiciary Committee and fought against every civil rights injustice.
  So many leaders. As I indicated, Shirley Chisholm, who ran for the 
Presidency. And Barbara Jordan, who sat on the impeachment committee as 
a young Member and said, We, the People. She denied any right of anyone 
to undermine the Constitution.

                              {time}  2115

  Her voice was strong and powerful. I am glad to call her my mentor 
and my predecessor.
  And so I just want to give these words. I want to capture some words 
here on that insurrection.
  Everyone knew the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election long 
before January 6, 2021. We also knew that the States had gone to a lot 
of traversing, even they were sued, and they still came back as each 
State leader said, no fraud: This is the outcome.
  Because of the transparency of each State's election administration 
and that of the joint meeting of Congress, it would simply confirm that 
Joe Biden had won more than a majority of the electoral votes along 
with winning the national popular vote by more than seven million 
votes.
  We all know that this was a historic election; more votes than we had 
ever counted, I believe, in the history of the United States. There was 
such a sense of exhilaration because democracy was alive. There were so 
many young people that voted. So many people of the potpourri of 
America, all backgrounds.
  We felt so good about voting together, many of us voting the same way 
for the same candidate, as evidenced by his victory. States that we had 
lost 4 years ago, enthusiastically voting for change, for goodness, for 
a spirit of unity. We knew something was on the horizon.
  But isn't it interesting that after that election, for months, people 
had been told a complete lie, which allowed them to stay in places that 
we did not know and conspire to come and attack this place, this holy 
place, this place of democracy, this place that has, Madam Speaker, 
above you, In God We Trust.
  They attacked this place and the riot came immediately after then-
President Trump promoted a march on the Capitol and called his 
supporters to stop the steal; never give up; never concede, and to 
fight like hell, during a speech that day, asserting that they would 
not have a country anymore if they did not act.
  I read these into our message of our power hour message, 50 years of 
the Congressional Black Caucus, because I think history will tell. 
Reading the annals of the Congressional Record, you will see that 
members of the Congressional Black Caucus, when they were tiny, until 
we have expanded, have consistently gone to the floor on questions of 
justice and expanding opportunity and ensuring that justice is a 
respecter of color or age or region. We fight for justice no matter 
what the color of your skin, what your background is.
  We are purists as it relates to justice. We love the Constitution, 
because--even though we were three-fifths of a person, we were not a 
human being when it was finalized--it was a document that grew and 
continues to breathe rights, from the First Amendment to the 13th 
Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, to the right for women to 
vote, to the amendments that deal with a right to a trial by jury, to 
the Fifth Amendment, due process, and the protection of your property. 
These are all breathing documents and words, breathing amendments that 
have allowed a people who were in bondage to scrap their way out of the 
devastation of hatred. We use this Constitution.
  But shamefully, that fight has to continue. And on January 6, that 
fight, that scab was torn off again. That rug was burning again. Those 
who came to say that they were fighting for Trump and fighting to 
overturn the election, but more importantly, they are fighting because 
the election was theirs, they called a Black officer the N word more 
times than he can remember, caused him to break down, among others. And 
he had the courage to say, all that they tried to do failed.
  Let me just show these depictions of our journey. I will start with 
this one. This year, 2021, is the 100th anniversary--I hate to even use 
that term--of the Tulsa riot. Allegedly, a young Black man in an 
elevator was alleged to have touched a White woman. I think when he 
finally got out of the elevator it was alleged rape, or it was rape, a 
typical story, over and over again.
  That is why we have such pain for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, 
Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Pamela Turner, 
Sandra Bland, Jacob Blake, and Elijah McClain in Colorado, and names 
beyond, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, the mothers who have become friends, 
Michael Brown, that is why we have such pain.
  And I guess my constituent--the family that has become America's 
family, along with all the other mothers and fathers--George Floyd grew 
up in Houston, Texas, in the Cuney Homes, public housing. His mother 
was the queen of public housing, took in children, fed children. They 
felt like they were at home in the Floyd family.
  Big George is what he was called. Big man. Took his brothers and 
sisters under his wing. George Floyd played basketball--my recollection 
is--in China with Yao Ming when they were young players, not pros. We 
never know who someone is.
  So this is the 100th anniversary of probably some of the likes of 
those names that I called. Life cut down.
  And this depiction is Captured Negroes on way to Convention Hall 
during the Tulsa race riot. They were captured. There was no justice. 
300 Negroes, Black Americans were buried in an unmarked grave, as we 
are told. This is how it was. This is how it was. This is how it was.
  The Congressional Black Caucus will be commemorating that this year. 
And I will introduce legislation with Senator Warren, on the Tulsa race 
riots next week.
  4,000, 4,000-plus Blacks were hung. And as you can see, there were 
smiling faces in the crowd. It was entertainment. Come to the town 
square.
  No, this is not a depiction of some dastardly person who did violent 
acts and raided through the community. This could have been someone 
walking along a dark road. It could have been the three boys in 
Mississippi during the civil rights movement; they were just driving, 
trying to get to their destination.
  These folks could have been walking. We had one woman who had a 
dispute with a storekeeper. She was a businesswoman. She was ultimately 
hung; never came back home. The family was looking for where she might 
be.

[[Page H582]]

  It looks like another celebratory occasion, hanging. We will hear 
more of this when we proceed to discuss our commission to study and 
develop reparation proposals.

  But let me--before I yield to my good friend and co-anchor, I just 
want you to see this one. This gentleman's name was--I am going to call 
him Mr. Gordon. He is a slave--was a slave, deceased. And clearly, 
those are markings of a very bad beating. But that is not the end of 
his story.
  This gentleman came out of slavery and fought in the Civil War on 
behalf of the Union. This is what we did. We always rise to the 
occasion.
  You will hear more about our story. But I wanted to make sure that we 
just got a sense of how we have been overcomers. But even with being 
overcomers, we know there is more to do.
  Madam Speaker, I am very delighted to be able to yield to the 
gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Williams), and she is, in her own right, 
a leader, a new member of this body, has civil rights in her blood, she 
is a mother, and she is here ready to fight for our children's 
education and she will succeed.
  Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, today my Congressional Black 
Caucus colleagues and I observe Black History Month and celebrate 50 
years of Our Power, Our Message.
  For 50 years, the Congressional Black Caucus has uplifted the voices 
of Black people and other marginalized communities so that they can 
share in the promise of America for all.
  For the 117th Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus marks a new 
milestone with 58 members, the largest membership in CBC history. The 
next 50 years of Our Power, Our Message is strong.
  We are here in D.C. witnessing more Black history being made with the 
first Black woman, HBCU grad, our soror, and a member of our 
Congressional Black Caucus serving as Vice President of the United 
States. Indeed, our power and our message are strong.
  While we continue to make great strides, it is not lost on me that 
2020 was a difficult year for Black people across this country. 
Collectively, we battled a pandemic that continues to infect and kill 
Black people at disproportionate rates.
  In my home State of Georgia, Black people are also experiencing some 
of the highest levels of unemployment in decades. By November 2020, 
Black Georgians had filed 71 percent more unemployment claims than 
White, Hispanic, Latinx, and Asian-American workers combined.
  Being Black in Georgia, we fight daily for what so many take for 
granted in this country, the right to vote, the right to the fair and 
equal treatment that George Floyd didn't get, the right to be, the 
right to exist.
  Today, in particular, we reflect on how far we have to go. One year 
ago, Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and murdered, simply because he was 
a Black man going for a jog in Brunswick, Georgia.
  His murder by white supremacists and the subsequent delays in 
realizing justice may seem new, but Black people have dealt with 
systemic racism for centuries in America, and we are here to break 
these structures and dismantle these systems using our power and our 
message as the Congressional Black Caucus.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her words 
and certainly her powerful words on the importance of our Vice 
President, the Honorable Vice President Harris. We are grateful for 
her.
  It is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Torres), my co-anchor.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I want to pay tribute to my 
classmate, Congress Member Nikema Williams, who, as the chair of the 
Georgia Democratic Party, was instrumental in winning the Senate for 
the Democratic Party.
  Thanks to the leadership of on-the-ground organizers like Congress 
Member Williams, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, a Democratic 
President means we have the makings of an FDR moment. We have a 
historic opportunity to govern as boldly in the 21st century as FDR did 
in the 20th century.
  Systemic racism in America traces back 400 years, and it is 
incredible to think that in the 400-year history of our country, we are 
as close as we have ever been to confronting the root causes of 
systemic racism.
  That is the burden that we bear as the Congressional Black Caucus, 
but it is not only a burden. It is a blessing. Public service in an FDR 
moment is a blessing.
  It is said the first historian, Herodotus, said that he wrote the 
first historical book so that the deeds of brave people cannot be 
forgotten. That is the same reason the CBC exists, so that the deeds of 
Black heroes like Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells, like John Lewis, 
like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, are never forgotten, that the 
contributions of Black America should remain front and center in the 
life of our country.
  It has been an honor to be with you, Congress Member Jackson Lee. I 
cannot tell you how honored I feel to be a member of the CBC.
  You know, I grew up poor most of my life. I was raised by a single 
mother who had to raise three children on minimum wage, which in the 
1990s was $4.25 an hour. I grew up in public housing, in conditions of 
mold and mildew, leaks and lead, without consistent heat and hot water 
in the winter. I never could have imagined myself as a member of the 
greatest institution in the United States Congress, the Congressional 
Black Caucus. It is an honor to be here with you in this caucus at this 
moment.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, we are humbled by the gentleman's 
words. We are humbled by this moment in history.
  I will conclude my remarks by building on Congressman Torres', that 
we are humbled, but we are honored, but we are ready to work.
  I will leave you with these words from our colleague and others. John 
Lewis said we are in a very difficult time in our country. I am afraid 
we may wake up one day in America, and our democracy is gone. But he 
went on to say that when you see something that is not right, say 
something, do something, get into good trouble.
  One of our ancient fathers, Frederick Douglass, said that there is no 
power without struggle.
  Tonight, we have laid the landscape of genius, contributions, 
sacrifice, brilliance, and the commitment to civil rights that is the 
Congressional Black Caucus. Our message, our power, Our Power, Our 
Message. We will continue to work. We will not yield, not give in, not 
give out, and not give up.
  Madam Speaker, let me thank my colleagues for joining the CBC Special 
Order tonight, and I thank the Speaker.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, this evening, on the occasion of 
this special order hour, I rise to commemorate the Congressional Black 
Caucus and its rich history of representation of Black voices across 
the nation.
  Today's Black Caucus is the materialization of the vision that our 
founding members had 50 years ago. Now nearly 60 members strong, our 
caucus has fought to empower the Black community so that they too may 
achieve the American Dream. And our success in doing so, as well as 
upholding the fundamentals of democracy, is unparalleled in this body's 
history.
  Now, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we face one of our 
toughest challenges yet. While it is true that the pandemic has 
affected all of us in some way, it has especially highlighted and 
exacerbated the inequalities that the Black community still faces in 
our society. We have been forced to battle the pandemic on two fronts--
health-wise and economically.
  Studies show that the comorbidities most closely associated with 
COVID-19 complications are diabetes and hypertension, which 
disproportionately affect the Black community. The prevalence of these 
diseases is systemic in nature--a result of decades of a lack of access 
to quality, accessible, and culturally competent medical care.
  I have also met with Black business owners in North Texas, who 
credited preexisting funding gaps and feeble relationships with lenders 
for their hardships during the pandemic. Disadvantaged at the onset, 
these businesses became increasingly unable to meet market needs, and 
reports now say that the pandemic has wiped out nearly half of Black 
small businesses in our country.
  In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Caucus has played a 
critical role in the

[[Page H583]]

drafting and enacting of legislation to support Black Americans--
including President Biden's newest package. Billed as the American 
Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion relief package consists of several 
provisions advocated for by the Black Caucus. Among them include $400 
billion for vaccine distribution with a focus on minority communities, 
$15 billion for equitably distributed grants to minority-owned small 
businesses, and investment in infrastructure projects to create more 
jobs for unemployed minorities.
  Madam Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus will certainly play a 
prominent Congress for generations to come. I look forward to 
continuing to work with my colleagues in the caucus to advance better, 
more equitable policies for all.

                          ____________________