February 27, 2017
115th Congress, 1st Session
Issue: Vol. 163, No. 34 — Daily Edition
Issue: Vol. 163, No. 34 — Daily Edition
Find an issue of the
Record (1995-Present)
Date:
Sections in This Issue:
CBC/SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS
(House of Representatives - February 27, 2017)
(House of Representatives - February 27, 2017)
Text available as:
·
TXT
Formatting necessary
for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g.,
<DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For
complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
From the Congressional
Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CBC/SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rutherford).
Under the Speaker's
announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentlewoman from the Virgin
Islands (Ms. Plaskett)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the minority leader.
General Leave
Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous
consent that all Members
have 5 legislative
days to revise and extend their remarks and to
include any extraneous
material in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection
to the request of the
gentlewoman from the
Virgin Islands?
There was no objection.
Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, the CBC chair, Mr.
Cedric Richmond, and
myself have a great
honor that I rise today as one of the anchors of
the CBC, the
Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour.
For the next 60 minutes I have a chance to
speak directly to the
American people on
issues of great importance to the Congressional
Black Caucus,
Congress, the constituents we represent, and all
Americans.
During this hour, as Black History Month ends
in the next day, we
believe it is
important for this Congress and
for the people of
America to hear about the great importance of
grassroots movements,
which have been the fortifying effect of the
civil rights movements
and other movements here in this country, and
have made this country
very great.
At this time I would yield to the gentleman
from Louisiana (Mr.
Richmond), the chair
of the Congressional Black Caucus, who will speak
on this subject matter
here on the floor.
Mr. RICHMOND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my
colleague, Stacy Plaskett from
the Virgin Islands,
for taking this assignment and making sure that the
Congressional Black
Caucus continues its conversation with America, and
to inform people on
issues that are important to us, and also
reflecting on how
important African-American history is, not just to
us, but to this
country.
It is African-American history that made this
country great in the
first place. How our
civil rights groups and people of the same kind,
not necessarily the
same color, came together to make this a more
perfect union.
So today what I wanted to do was actually
talk about some of the
civil rights
organizations that changed this country, made it better,
made it possible for
me to be here, and compare and talk about some of
the movements that we
see today that are making some of the same
differences for the
next generation. It is just a shame that in 2017 we
are still fighting the
same fights we fought 50 years ago for voting
rights, for equality,
and all of those things.
So when I say I want to talk about some of
those organizations, I
want to talk about
organizations like SCLC, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference;
or CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality; or
SNCC, the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. They all played
an important role in
launching grassroots movements that succeeded in
ensuring more equality
for African Americans.
Sit-ins, bus boycotts, marches, voter
registration drives, and other
protests--these
grassroots movements spread across the South, including
my home State of
Louisiana.
Let's just talk about one specific incident.
September 9, 1960, the
Woolworth store lunch
counter in New Orleans closed early.
What was the reason?
Seven members of the Congress of Racial
Equality, five Black students
and two White
students, decided to hold a sit-in demonstration to
protest Jim Crow. This
was the first-ever sit-in in the city.
The seven students were like so many other
students across the South
at the time who were
using nonviolent action to change the country. In
fact, let me read
their names because many of them I knew.
In fact, one, Jerome Smith, who was a
Southern University student the
year before, is
actually still on the battlefield in Louisiana not only
coaching Little
League, but fighting for criminal justice reform and
financial and economic
equality.
You also had Rudy Lombard from Xavier
University, a freedom fighter;
Archie Allen from
Dillard University; Bill Harrell from Tulane; William
Harper, who was at
LSU; Hugh Murray, who was also at
Tulane; and Joyce
Taylor, who intended
to enroll at Southern University.
Fortunately, unlike others who held sit-ins,
these seven Southern
students didn't have
milkshakes thrown on them. They were not beaten or
bloodied. The seven
students sat down at 10:30. Six police officers
were on hand to keep
the peace and did not try to remove the students.
The students sat there
determined for 2 hours.
Because of the demonstration, Woolworth
blinked first. They decided
to close early that
day and they closed at 12:30, after the students
had sat there for 2
hours.
These seven students and so many other civil
rights activists are the
shoulders on which we
all stand. Unfortunately, the fight for equality
is not over. We see
this most clearly when we look at our criminal
justice system. To
date, the organization Black Lives Matter has
launched a grassroots
movement that has succeeded in exposing police
brutality and making
it front-page news….
The following is a comment from Hugh Murray and not a part of
the Congressional Record. I do not agree
with the speaker’s last paragraph re BLM and alleged police brutality. The speaker tells some of the story of the
first sit-in in New Orleans, which was then the largest city in the South. On the sit-in, true, we were not beaten, but because it was the
first, we did not know what would happen.
A few years ago the NO Times Picayune ran a story with photos
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the event. I noticed I was not wearing my glasses. Then I remembered, I did not wear them
because there was a possibility of being beaten, and I did not want to lose an
eye. We sat at the counter for hours,
and then the NO DA appeared in person with a huge law book. He read us the law. Either we would leave the premises or be
arrested. We did not leave, and we were
arrested, booked, and jailed. We were
bailed out that night. Sometime later, when
we sat together in the court, the judge threatened us with contempt for
integrating his courtroom. We were
convicted of a felony. It took years for
the case to get to the US Supreme Court when we were vindicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment