Date: 2002-02-27
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Madam Speaker. it is my honor to begin the Congressional Black Caucus 2002 Black History Month Special Order. The theme of this years na-. tional African American History Month is "The Color Line Revisited: Is racism dead?" More than 100 years ago. in 1900. the great scholar. W.E.B. DuBois. addressed a -pan.-African conference in London where he said. "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line." It is now the 21st century and a major problem for this Nation is still the color line. but I believe that the color line is shifting. and shifting toward a better future. Certainly as a nation we could not have watched Vonetta Flowers become the first African American woman ever to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. ironically during Black History Month. without acknowledging that the.color line is shifting. Certainly when we look at the progress among blackelected officials. we know the color line is shifting: In 1964. there were just three African Americans in Congress and 300 blackelected officials nationally. Today. those numbers have swelled to 9.000 blackelected officials nationwide and 39 Members in Congress. 38 being members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Yes. the color line is shifting. but the problem is still here. In our lifetime. in my lifetime. I have seen Nazism fall. Communism fall. Fascism fall. but why not racism? In our lifetime. we must cling to the belief that we as a united people will celebrate the death of racism. Americanstyled racism. loosely defined. is the belief that one race is superior to another. Upon this principle. slavery. Jim Crowism. lynching. economic exploitation. and many other forms of oppression were engraved in law and tradition. Can we now say racism is dead when 51 percent of African American children are living in poverty. while the civil rights movement fought for the right to vote in the sixties. and now in the new millennium we must fight to ensure that votes are counted. particularly in black areas? For example. one in 11 ballots in the predominantly black voting precincts in Florida were tossed out. according to a New York Times analysis of the Sunshine States black vote. Racial profiling is alive. About 73 percent of motorists stopped and searched on a major New Jersey highway in 1999 were African Americans. even though African Americans made up less than 18 percent of the traffic violators. Disparities in sentencing and in incarceration have grown. African American men comprise 50 percent of the U.S. prison population. despite representing just 6 percent of the U.S. population. Reparations were refused to the survivors of the 1921 race riots in Tulsa. Oklahoma. The legislature refused this remedy. even though whites destroyed an African American community. killing 300 residents and destroying businesses and homes. But they are just a few examples. just a few. There are so many more. Moreover. when we witness the fights against affirmative action as a tool against African Americans achieving equality in employment and education. we cad only conclude that much more must be done to bury racism. When we review even now that land has been taken from African Americans. that they have had to pay more for life insurance policies. we know that racism is not dead. But in my closing. the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.. speaking in Nashville. Tennessee. on December 27. 1962. are appropriate: "The problem of race and color prejudice remains Americas greatest moral dilemma. How we deal vith this crucial situation will determine our moral health as individuals. our political health as a Nation. and our prestige as a leader of the free world. -The hour is late. the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late."I know the Speaker joins me in recognizing the tremendous achievements that African Americans are making to this Nation. When I get on an elevator to come up -each day. I know that it was an African American who invented the elevator. Even turning on a light or stopping at a street light. we know that we have been part of it. Standing in this building. we know that African Americans as slave workers built this great Capitol of the Nation. Madam Speaker. I yield to the gentlewoman from California to moderate the rest of the Special Order.