[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19645]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                HURRICANE KATRINA AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

  (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I have been through some of the worst 
hurricanes in the last quarter of a century. They were experiences I 
never want to go through again, but none comes close to the devastation 
especially in the lives of the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Alabama. I would have thought that there would have been some 
institutional history and expertise at FEMA that would have dictated a 
more appropriate preparation and immediate lifesaving response. 
Obviously, I was wrong and lives were lost.
  What I have not been wrong about is what my CBC colleagues and I have 
been telling this body over and over again for a long time, that 
African Americans are left out and left behind in just about every 
facet of American life. Now the entire country and the whole world has 
seen it in its most stark and tragic reality.
  If nothing else comes out of the devastation we have witnessed over 
the past week, it should be that we forge the will and determination 
and the leadership of this Nation to close the gaps; to eliminate the 
disparities; and, finally, after all of these centuries, ensure 
fairness, equality, and justice for all and that all Americans be 
finally embraced into the fullness of the promise that is America.

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