Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we gather on this floor to give recognition to a growing and troubling problem in America today.

Never before have so many young people, and in particular so many African-American young people, been susceptible to the tragic influence of suicidal thoughts.

One of the things that we cannot leave out of this discussion is how much the anxiety of our politics has contributed to the overall dysfunction that has become a cancer on the lives and mental health of America's citizens.

I say to you tonight when people have to worry about political violence and insurrections, that is a strain on mental health. When people have to be concerned about losing their healthcare when they need it most; when people are concerned about the attacks on Medicaid and Medicare; when people are concerned about not being able to make decisions on their own bodies; when people are concerned about whether or not there will be a shooting in their school today; and when people have to listen to the former President of the United States demonize Haitian immigrants with absolutely no evidence for the erroneous claims he happens to be making, it is no wonder that America has become a Nation riddled with anxiety.

Let us be very clear: The will to live is connected to the conditions of one's life.

I am not a mental health expert, Mr. Speaker, but I happen to believe that people who have something to live for are often engaged in the act of living with a sense of promise and hope.

I understand that mental health diseases are real and must be treated separately, but there are a lot of people in this country who contemplate ending their lives not because they have a mental health disease but rather because the conditions in which they have to live have become overwhelming and completely debilitating.

Mr. Speaker, and when people can no longer see a future for themselves, they are more susceptible to the vicissitudes of despair.

The epidemic of opioid abuse is indicative of this analysis.

There are millions upon millions of people in this country who are simply trying to escape the conditions of their lives.

And every day they are fighting not to give in to the encroaching darkness that seems to stalk them both day and night.

And let's be honest, it is a familiar darkness.

The content of which is comprised of questions like: How will I pay my mortgage;

How can I afford rent and keep up with my car note; and

How can I pay for the college education of my children while at the same time afford school supplies for the ones who are still in elementary school.

It is a familiar darkness.

It is comprised of concerns about the future of democracy;

the right to vote;

racism and the creeping eradication of America's commitment to diversity;

the criminal justice system;

questions of war and peace; and

clean water, clean air, and clean food.

And my question tonight is this: What about them?

What are we prepared to do in this Congress to make the lives of the American people more secure and worthy of what it means to be called an American?

And contrary to what some have come to believe, not everybody in this country can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

There are millions of people who proverbially don't even own boots.

And I still believe that a nation of great wealth owes it to all of its citizens to provide a basic level of support, so that while it is true that not all of us will have maximum success--none of us, however, should be condemned to fail.

We have a moral and ethical obligation to make the future of this country brighter than the one we were born into.

And we do this not just in the policies we legislate, but also in the tone of our politics.

High octane rhetoric will not bring a level of ease to the hearts and minds of the American people.

And so I say to you tonight, let us not just be concerned about preventing suicide without confronting the conditions that make the lives of the American people needlessly miserable and more difficult than it has to be.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the flourishing of all people.

And let us be particularly mindful of the suffering that grows among us.

We want you to know tonight that we see you,

we hear you,

we love you,

and you are not in this battle alone.

Madam Speaker, I thank the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, my co-anchor on this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour, for yielding.

I affiliate myself with all the comments that my colleagues have shared regarding this remarkable woman, our colleague and dear friend, Sheila Jackson Lee.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to lend my voice to the chorus of those who have gathered in this Chamber to honor and give mournful recompense to the life and legacy of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a woman of such grave significance who even in repose remains a towering figure among us.

Sheila Jackson Lee was no shrinking violet, She was no harbinger of demure expectations, and she did not cower in the face of adversity, nor did she retreat in the midst of a storm.

Sheila Jackson Lee did not do as some have already done; namely, get elected to political office and forget where they come from. Sheila Jackson Lee carried the people of Houston with her because her dreams were their dreams too. Their adversities were her adversities too. She wanted for them no less what she wanted for herself.

Here is a woman who in her lifetime had to deal with policies who told her she had to sit in the back of the bus. She went from having people tell her she had to go through the back door to being a Member of Congress who passed laws to make America a better place for all people.

She lived long enough to see President Barack Obama ascend to the Presidency. She lived long enough to see Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown elevated to the Supreme Court. She was just a few days away from living to see Vice President Harris selected to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency of the United States. What a life. What a witness. What a legacy.

Tonight, I say to you, a mighty oak has fallen. I shared so many evenings and days and times with Congresswoman Lee, my heart is filled, and I thank God for her having come this way.

I felt in many ways like the words in the book of ``Animal Farm,'' ``All animals are equal, but some are more equal. . . . `' I never looked at myself as a peer of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. I was honored to carry her bags. I was honored to walk beside her. I was honored to be in the midst of her company. I thank God for having put me in a place where I could be from afar and then in my lifetime be able to work up close and hand in hand with her.

In this place where she will no longer stand is a hole that will never be filled in this Chamber because while none of us are indispensable, some of us can never be replaced. That is the legacy of Sheila Jackson Lee.

This is the brightness of the one who we remember, who in death has become both the singer and the song. Let the word go forth from this time and place that Sheila Jackson Lee was a steel magnolia, one of the daughters of thunder, a woman of such invention and personal power that you could hear the sound of the oceans gathering in her voice. She was, she is, and she will always be one of the great gifts of the African- American community to the future of America.

Tonight, we remember her. Tonight, we sit upon the ground and tell sad stories, and we laugh and joke about the death of a queen here in this Chamber. Under the canopy of this temple of democracy, we dare to make letters of her once and glorious life.

From serving as the first female ranking member of the judiciary Subcommittee for Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Sheila's talents made room for herself.

She will be missed, she will be mourned, and she will be lamented, but now she belongs to the ages. Like Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, and Donald Payne, she will be watching over us.

Sleep on, my sister. You deserve your rest. You have won the race. God will bless you.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to coanchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague, Representative Terri Sewell, of the great State of Alabama.

For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus will have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the subject of the Shelby v. Holder decision and the American Voting Rights Act, specifically the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the great State of Alabama (Ms. Sewell), and I wish to be totally associated with all of her great remarks and scholarship.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because 11 years ago the Supreme Court of the United States proved that it lacked the judicial imagination befitting an institution clothed with immense power as 11 years ago the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Frighteningly, 11 years ago, the highest Court in the land decided that racism had magically evaporated in America and that hatred had somehow receded quietly into the history of the Republic never to be seen or heard from again.

Eleven years ago, nine Justices on the Supreme Court decided that they were social scientists with a particular expertise in racism and the politics of voting. Instead of being Justices who were hired by the American people to decide the constitutionality of a law, they rather took the position that the Court knew more about voter suppression than the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the subject.

Nine Justices on the Supreme Court, Mr. Speaker, thought they had a better working knowledge on the state of racism in America than people living with it every day. However, I rise tonight to declare emphatically that nothing could be further from the truth.

This Supreme Court does not know more about racism in America than do the people who are the survivors of it. The members of the Supreme Court are not experts on everything. They are not omniscient. They are not infallible. They are not beyond all moral and political reproach.

In fact, based upon what we have recently heard about certain members of the Supreme Court, it would seem that the complete opposite, in fact, is true. When it comes to the Supreme Court as it is currently configured, fallibility abounds.

I rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, because the elected Representatives of the American people cannot allow six unelected and seemingly uninformed individuals to undo the moral and democratic gains won by the civil rights movement over 50 years without doing something about it.

All over this country, we have seen the disparate impact that the Shelby County decision has had on voting access in America, and what was once thought to be a regional problem has now metastasized and become nationalized.

Since the Shelby decision, every region of this country is struggling to overcome novel attempts at voter suppression and the like. Regrettably, 11 years ago, those of us in the civil rights community told the leaders of this Nation what was going to happen.

We told America that gutting the Voting Rights Act would cause voter suppression to spread like a virus in a second-grade classroom, and that is exactly what has happened. That is exactly where we find ourselves today.

Those of us who believe that the only threat to democracy are events like unto those on January 6 are painfully naive. The greatest threat to democracy isn't the outright violence that takes place when citizens who are motivated by lies engage in hand-to-hand combat with one other, but rather by the legalized and the systemic unraveling of the cherished democratic norms. However, those of us who love America cannot sit idly by and allow the darkness of bigotry to, once again, embed itself into the electoral systems of this country as it once was.

Those of us who have a constitutional mandate to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty cannot allow what African Americans did to expand the general welfare of this country's commitment to opportunity be erased.

Nothing is more indelible and inherently fundamental for the success of a thriving democracy than is the quality of a citizen's right to vote, because in America, voting is the manifestation of citizenship. In this country, if you cannot vote, then you are not a citizen.

Moreover, what most people miss about the civil rights movement is that at its core it was an attempt to empower African Americans with the rights afforded to us by virtue of our citizenship.

The right to vote is our birthright, and, yet, for hundreds of years, this country denied African Americans born in this Nation what was legitimately due to them. Moreover, it is only through blood, sweat, and tears that African Americans were able to fight in every war to, once again, regain full citizenship.

It was only because people were willing to give their lives that Black people in this Nation can cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice, and we are not going to let anyone take those rights away.

Reflecting upon Shelby v. Holder 11 years later, I would like to quote the Assistant State's Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

She said: ``This anniversary provides an important opportunity to reflect on the profound consequences of that opinion'' in Shelby County v. Holder ``which struck down the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and left millions of voters of color without the mechanism that had stopped voting discrimination before it could be implemented.

``When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, he described it as `one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.' The Voting Rights Act was the product of bold action by Congress. It forcefully addressed the problem that nearly a century after the Reconstruction Amendments, millions of Americans were still denied the ability'' to cast their ``vote and participate in our democracy because of their race.

``One of the most important pieces of the Voting Rights Act'' that was taken away ``was section 5's `preclearance' requirement. Enacted in 1965 and reauthorized by Congress in 1970, 1975, 1982,

and 2006, section 5 required jurisdictions that had a history of voting discrimination to obtain approval from the Attorney General or a Federal Court before implementing changes in election procedures and practices.

``Covered jurisdictions could not implement their proposed voting changes until they had received preclearance. Thanks to section 5, jurisdictions that tried to make changes that had a discriminatory impact or were adopted with a discriminatory purpose were blocked from doing so. More than 800 proposed changes were altered or withdrawn in the period after 1982 alone.

``A repository of the department's section 5 `objection letters,' which provided an official record of each objection as well as the basis of the decision, can be found.

``The Shelby County ruling marked a significant turning point for voting rights in the United States. In its decision, the Supreme Court invalidated, on constitutional grounds, section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which provided the formula for determining which jurisdictions were covered under section 5.

``Without that formula, all jurisdictions were released from coverage overnight. Section 5 was rendered effectively inoperative, freeing States and localities to enact voting laws without Federal oversight.

``States wasted no time implementing election changes that had not or might not have survived the preclearance requirement. On June 25, 2013, the very day that the Supreme Court issued the Shelby opinion, Texas officials announced that they would implement a discriminatory and burdensome photo identification statute. And on June 26, the day after the Shelby County decision, Senator Tom Apodaca, chairman of the North Carolina Senate Rules Committee, publicly stated that the North Carolina legislature would be moving forward with an omnibus law imposing multiple voting restrictions.''

Why weren't they trying to expand voting?

They said: We will use this decision to restrict voting.

``In the absence of preclearance, the statutes went into effect and the department, along with private parties, had to file suit under a different part of the Voting Rights Act to enjoin them.''

Mr. Speaker, I continue:

``States have adopted photo identification requirements, limited those who can provide assistance at polling places, reduced options for early voting, and closed polling places. Unfortunately, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proved prophetic when she observed in her Shelby dissent that ending preclearance was like `throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'

``Without section 5, new laws can be challenged only through long, protracted, resource-intensive, case-by-case legislation,'' and fights.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is the most fundamental piece of legislation pending before the United States Congress, and it must be enacted with all deliberate speed. This is something, Mr. Speaker, we must do.

Securing the right to vote is the moral obligation we have to the principles of America and to whatever we believe is a future worthy of our children.

Let me remind my colleagues that the progenitors of suppression do not stop with their initial targets. Today, the votes of African Americans are being suppressed all over the Nation, but tomorrow it might well be yours.

Do not forget the lessons of history. The people who are coming for our rights will never be satisfied with what they have attempted to do to us. Soon they will look for new targets; that is to say, new objects of their resentment, their ridicule, and their scorn.

However, what the Supreme Court Shelby decision has reinforced, in no uncertain terms, is the fact that elections have consequences. The inability to elect a Democratic President in 2016 led to this horrible decision, and those of us who stand on the precipice of a national election must remember this invaluable lesson.

Let us not forget that in 2016 the woman with the most votes did not win the presidency.

Whatever policy differences we may have with the President of the United States, we cannot allow the protection of our civil rights to be left in the hands of Justices who are so ideologically motivated that they unapologetically fly insurrectionist flags upside down at their homes.

Moreover, the only way to protect America from the conservative judicial fanaticism of the Supreme Court is to reelect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. There is simply no other way for us to go.

Let us do what we must do so that justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Mr. Speaker, you have heard from our distinguished colleague, the Honorable Terri Sewell from the great State of Alabama, on this topic for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Mr. Speaker, all issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus are our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congresswoman Terri Sewell for her comments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague, the Honorable Representative Sheila Cherfilus- McCormick, from the great State of Florida.

For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the topic of Caribbean American Heritage Month, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield to the Honorable Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick from the State of Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my co-anchor and leader, the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, for her remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Caribbean American Heritage Month. For much of the long history of this Nation, it has been lost to most of our citizens the tremendous role that the nation of Haiti played in the formation of the United States of America.

What most people miss is that it was because of the Haitian Revolution that Napoleon lost interest in maintaining control over his so-called Caribbean landholdings and, therefore, saw no use in keeping Louisiana, prompting him to facilitate the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States of America.

The expansion of this Nation west of the Mississippi was directly related to the Haitian Revolution, a point I invite my colleagues to remember the next time they wonder why members of the Congressional Black Caucus are so concerned about Haiti.

Let me further remind my colleagues that the city responsible for my birth, the city of Chicago in the State of Illinois, was founded by a Haitian immigrant, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.

While I was growing up, if you talked about the erasure of history, there was no monument formally dedicated in the great city of Chicago to the founding father of the city of Chicago. It was first recognized in what was formerly a city jail that Dr. Margaret Burrows turned into the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in the city of Chicago. Most recently, our magnificent Lake Shore Drive was renamed Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable Lake Shore Drive.

We have had to insert the history to make it whole because when history is not made whole, it is propaganda.

I was born and raised in Chicago, and there would be no Chicago without a member of the Caribbean-American community. It is about time the people of this Nation come to terms with the immense contribution of Haiti to the United States of America.

Everything that we love about New Orleans and Chicago is directly dependent upon the nation of Haiti and the children she sent around the world. The people of Haiti had as much to do with the formation of America's cultural influence as any of the descendants of Europe. Yet, somehow, Haitians are left out of the conversations when it comes to the contribution other nations have made to the formation of the American spirit.

The father of Chicago was a Haitian man, but there was a time in American history when history books would not acknowledge the ancestry of persons of African heritage.

In fact, there was a time in the history of Chicago when Jean Baptiste du Sable's name would never be erected on a building. We had denied the truth of Haiti's contribution, and yet, the reality of Haiti's indelible endowment to America lives on.

Those of us who rise tonight do so because we refuse to be silent about the great contributions that African descendants from the Caribbean have made to this Nation's history and this Nation's future.

Malcolm X once said: ``Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.'' Yet, what he meant by the statement was that it is only when we discover the immovable truth of our history that we find the footing we need to leap out of the darkness and into the kind of future we deserve.

A point which I should add is that Malcolm X was himself of Caribbean-American descent, as his mother and her descendants hailed from Grenada.

Needless to say, there is a long and noble list of Americans whose ancestry goes back to the Caribbean, and we would be wise to honor that history because in honoring it we honor, in fact, ourselves.

It is only when we honor the truth that we tear down the load-bearing walls of falsehood, hatred, and bigotry.

The days when we could be in denial about the unique and important contribution of marginalized parts of the world to the formation of America are over.

Mr. Speaker, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that before you leave the house in the morning you have already depended on half the world to clothe you, to feed you, and provide you with a cup of coffee to wake you up.

I submit to the Members of this body that America is better when we are about the business of acknowledging the longstanding connection that our pursuit for freedom has with other parts of the world.

I know sometimes certain populations in America would like to believe the mythical lie of a rugged American individualism. I understand that there are those who would rather think that this country pulled itself up by its bootstraps without any assistance from anybody anywhere.

Regrettably, nothing could be further from the truth.

America is not a weaker country because nations such as Haiti assisted us and directly benefited us, but rather, we are stronger because the truth will set you free.

Mr. Speaker, this is a 220th anniversary of the Republic of Haiti. Haiti is America's longest and oldest democratic partner. Haiti now celebrates 220 years.

I would like to remind this body, on Haiti's 220-year anniversary, their democratically elected president was highjacked, kidnapped, and taken out with U.S. assistance from his homeland to an African city.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is a time where the Haitians certainly need our assistance. Haiti is not a debtor country. Haiti is a creditor country to the United States. Haitians supported America during the Revolutionary War in Savannah where a statue still rises from those ashes.

Let us celebrate this Caribbean Heritage Month. Let us celebrate all of those that have been erased from history that have committed such great and noble works to us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick), the co-anchor of this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, my co-anchor of this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour, for her comments.

Mr. Speaker, in closing I would like to share that Haiti has a rich and a very vibrant history. It pains me deeply to see that people look at Haiti as a beggar nation. Haiti has gone through one of the most horrendous stories in mankind.

After the Haitian people valiantly fought off those that enslaved them,

American powers and European powers forced those that had been enslaved, kidnapped, raped, and robbed to pay reparations back to France up until the 1940s.

The Haitian people are vibrant people and honorable people, and Haitians deserve our help and support. The United States asked the Kenyan Government to support the Haitian people to help gain back control of their country by the citizens for their rightful democracy. We very well, as the world's most powerful country, should be able to send our forces down and assist those people so they can build back their country.

We owe them a development plan. We cannot be the greatest nation having the poorest country in the world off of our shores. Haitians have been our best allies, our longest democratic partners, and we can do better.

Mr. Speaker, you have heard from my distinguished colleagues and the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of all the great issues important to the Congressional Black Caucus, our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I was not present due to a prior engagement. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 236 and NAY on Roll Call No. 235.

PERSONAL explanation

Madam Speaker, first, I thank the Honorable Congresswoman from the great State of Florida, the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, for yielding.

Madam Speaker, today I rise because June is National Reunification Month, and we owe it to Black families not to be silent about what the child welfare system has done to them in both tragic and traumatic ways.

I say to you today, Madam Speaker, the effects have been devastating and long-lasting on our children. The fact that we even have to have a National Reunification Month says it all.

How can it even be possible that a system that purports to help Black families has been so chiefly responsible for the separation of the very families it supposedly exists to serve?

This kind of morose contradiction cannot be allowed to persist and linger because whether some people in this country are willing to admit it or not, families come in all shapes and sizes. Families come in all colors and configurations. They even come in various economic conditions and levels of education.

All of them are still families, and all of them deserve our commitment. All of them are dependent on the work we do in this Chamber, and the Members of this body cannot just care about the families that remind them of their own.

No matter the race or configuration of a particular family, we are here to serve every family in this country. Either we care about all American families or, in truth, is it that we only care about some, most, or none?

Black families deserve all the rights and opportunities extended to every other family in this country. In fact, considering the historical assault on this country's institutions and policies against Black families, one might even suggest that Black families deserve to have more than most. We have been through a lot.

I am honored to be a Member of this congressional body and to represent

the First Congressional District of the State of Illinois. When I think of the life of a young child who was kidnapped from West Africa by the name of Phillis Wheatley in 1753, who was manumitted from slavery in 1773, our Nation has come a long way, but let us never forget that a child had been kidnapped who was 8 years of age. They approximated her age because of the size of her teeth. She had to go up and talk to John Hancock and others and had to recite poetry that we later came to find out were anagrams. She was an absolutely brilliant child, and she was the first person of African ancestry from 1619 to 1753 to have been manumitted from slavery.

I want us to know that Black families are more valuable simply because they have been through so much. Black families don't have their value just because they have been through so much. It is because of the compassion they have had to grow. Not one family is more valuable than the others. We all have different experiences, and sometimes they have had a long-lasting and devastating legacy of neglect that has too often resulted in outright violence.

We rise tonight to reflect on the role of this tragic system and how we might strengthen bonds and not just perpetuate historical problems and systemic norms in the child welfare system that is tearing so many families apart.

I am convinced now more than ever that we must do whatever we can to reduce the need for foster care and strengthen families in whichever configuration they are formed.

Until the system of child welfare can see the value in keeping families together, we must hold the system accountable for what we know to be right. What we do, we also have to know is the right thing. We know that, yes, every child should be protected, and they still need their mothers and their fathers no matter the frailty and the conditions that they suffer from.

Yes, children should have their basic needs met, too, but they still need their grandmothers and grandfathers.

Our child welfare system should not separate children. Our child fostering system that is supposed to help feed and nourish children should not separate children in any case.

Every child who has a brother or a sister deserves to have a relationship with their brother or sister they possess. As much as children should be protected from whatever seeks to threaten the integrity of their lives, it is also the case that no child should be erroneously or permanently separated from people who love them.

We must change the economic conditions and political factors that make it even possible for Black children to end up not being cared for by their relatives because of a lack of capacity and their resources.

There is a reason Black families are more likely to be investigated by child protective services and to have their children removed and placed in out-of-home care. There is a reason more than 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will experience a child welfare investigation before their 18th birthday and 10 percent of Black children will be placed into foster care.

These are not accidental occurrences. Rather, they are the manifestation of a deep and pervasive systemic bias. Black children spend more time in foster care; Black children have more placements; and, yes, Black children are less likely to be reunified with their families.

Somebody needs to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Since the children of our community cannot speak on the floor of this Chamber tonight, we dare to speak for them. Tonight, we pick up the standard for their cause and declare emphatically on their behalf: Let these children return home to loving families. Let them be treated with respect. Let's give them the presumption of innocence and virtue that they deserve. Let them be reunited with the kindred spirit that produced them and continues to love them in spite of the challenges that they face.

This pattern of unjustified investigation and prolonged separation must be brought to an end, not just for the sake of the children but also for the sake of this Nation's future.

Unless the children of our community are returned to the loving arms of their families, no child in this country is safe. No child can sleep easy tonight, and we will not rest until the circle is restored and until the village can, once again, decide for itself what is best for our children.

As we work to keep them safe, let us live to make them free because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it alone.

We thank God for the life, the living, and the legacy of the Honorable Phillis Wheatley, a child who was separated and was the first to be manumitted to be free in America, a child who was kidnapped that God had borne free and who had to have her rights restored as a human being.

Madam Speaker, I thank the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick from the great State of Florida for her continued service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise because it is imperative that this body move with all deliberate speed to pass a farm bill that is both responsible and enriching for the American people.

The farm bill is one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation that we enact as a government, not simply because of the dollars we dedicate, but more so because of the number of people who are supported by the passing of this indispensable law.

Unlike most of the bills we pass, the farm bill is not a dry and depersonalized legislative act. There are names and faces attached to food. There are real people in dire situations associated and connected to the success of this bill.

Unlike most of the appropriations we allocate in this body, the farm bill is a moral document that reminds us that we owe each other as human beings.

It brings us back to the fundamental things. It reminds us that the politics of the future mean nothing in the stomach of a child who is hungry.

To be sure, this bill compels us to move forward. This bill moves us beyond politics of blame so that we might embrace a more excellent way. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the farm bill is one of the few manifestations of the social contract this government makes with the American people. The SNAP program alone is a moral accomplishment that we have to reach for.

Over 300,000 people make up my district in Illinois. Almost 73,000 of those households receive SNAP benefits. Almost 40 percent of these households have a child in them, and almost 45 percent of those children have some sort of disability.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the bill is one of the few manifestations of the social contract of this government that the American people deserve. The SNAP program alone is our moral achievement, and I say this because all of us know that 86 percent of the SNAP benefits go to the households of women and children.

Mr. Speaker, we have to move with speed. Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you. Let me tell you, there is a mutuality in this contract. We also have to understand that the state has to support the people, not simply the people supporting the state. The farm bill helps those who are in need when their backs are against the wall.

Does this bill achieve that? No, Mr. Speaker. Taking food off of children's plates is not the best of the American ideal. We say our prayers, and we pray for the food we are about to receive. We do not pray for the food that has now been removed from our table by our government.

We must, indeed, fight for the rights of all those women and children and disabled families that need our help.

This is important because the time when we ignore cities and emerging farming centers is over. In the district that I represent, we celebrate community gardens and urban farms because inasmuch as I believe that access to healthy food is a right that all human beings should enjoy, it is also a responsibility that each of us must take into our own hands. Each of us must do whatever we can to ensure that our families have the sustenance and nutrition they require for flourishing and the possibility of a great life.

We need a farm bill that is responsible. Taking food out of the mouths of the most desperate and those of the least, the lost, and the left behind cannot stand. I will be opposing this farm bill until it is more responsive and we leave SNAP alone and ensure that every family is well fed in America.

I thank Mrs. Hayes for picking up this fight.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to address you.

In the play ``Julius Caesar,'' Mark Antony proclaims: ``What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?''

I rise tonight because this is our question today. By what measure and according to what standard might we allow this week to slip between our fingers and not remember what happened on a street in Minneapolis on May 25? What in all creation would justify our forgetting a collective unconsciousness?

We are summoned into this Chamber tonight because George Floyd should be alive today. He should be enjoying the matriculation of his daughter from one grade to the next. He should be living out his days under the protections afforded to every American citizen, such as the presumption of innocence, equal protection under the law, and all the Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

Tragically, none of what ought to be is true in the case of Mr. George Floyd. George Floyd is not alive, George Floyd was not protected, and George Floyd was not a victim of just bigotry and neglect. He was killed by the very institution employed to ensure his safety.

This is what happens when people don't see you as being someone and something worthy of protection. This is what happens when you are viewed as a threat and Blackness is seen as a problem and not as a gift to the world. Indeed, what happened to Mr. George Floyd over a $20 alleged bill--they said there was a $20 bill that was counterfeited-- that had the assistance of five officers dressed in uniform, in broad daylight, to suffocate him. No one would ever know what happened to the alleged $20 fraudulent bill.

What happened to George Floyd is a predictable outcome when the country you live in would rather build prisons than reimagine schools, would rather blame poverty on the poor but never question the gluttony of the rich, and would rather ignore the persistent evil of racism as if the record of our inability to honor each other's humanity had not already resulted in tragedy and death.

The beaches of American history are cluttered with the bleached bones of the innocent, needlessly slaughtered on the battlefield of this Nation's preoccupation with subjugation and hatred. I remind Members that Mr. George Floyd died in the new millennium. This isn't some type of tragedy I am talking about from a century ago. This was the new millennium, and George Floyd deserves to be alive today.

What happened to Mr. George Floyd is the rhyme that makes history, it makes whatever we fail to be honest about: racism, militarism, and, indeed, a destructive system.

We have gathered here today to answer Mark Antony's question. There is no cause, and there are no foreseeable circumstances that would compel us to forget what happened to Mr. George Floyd.

George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who refused to see the humanity of the helpless, who refused to see the humanity of a handcuffed man, who refused to see a man gasping for his last breath with a knee wedged on his back while suffocating him and imperiled. I say to Members: Anyone born of a woman should have been able to identify with the pleading of George Floyd not to lose his life.

Mr. Floyd asked for his mother as he gasped his last breath. One does not need a graduate degree in ethics, morality, or philosophy to have been moved by the elegy of George Floyd. Not only does this event say something about the totalitarian impulses of policing in America, but it also says something about the kind of Nation we have allowed ourselves to become.

We have also allowed certain political influences to compel us to see each other as enemies and not merely as adversaries. We have allowed resentment to determine how we respond to one another and not what is required of us if we are to survive.

This week also presents us with a golden opportunity that we cannot ignore. The painful anniversary of the murder of George Floyd presents us with a chance to not only recommit ourselves to the eradication of racism and police-sponsored violence in America, but it also reminds us that there is a piece of legislation pending in the Senate that needs to be passed right away.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act deserves to be taken under consideration by every United States Senator immediately because not reforming how Black people are policed in this country will render the murder of George Floyd a tragedy, but nothing more. I say to my colleagues today: Why settle for a tragedy when we can pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and we can make a new beginning. We have it within our power to make sure that what happened on May 25, 2020, just 4 years ago, never happens again.

We have it within our reach to lift America from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. Every Member of the United States Senate has a moral obligation to reconsider and, indeed, pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and not hide behind the politics of our respective parties.

The question before us is a simple one: Do my colleagues want our beloved and great country to be a place that is safe and fit for our children to forge a future without fear and the prospect of indiscriminate hate and violence?

If the answer is yes, then let us work toward getting together to ensure that we will never again be driven into this Chamber to remember the death of innocence.

If the answer is yes, then let us choose a more excellent way.

If the answer is yes, then let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we will reap what we have sown if we faint not.

Mr. Speaker, it is so important that, today, we remember those from Central Park, the innocent young men who were tortured into a false confession. They received no mercy 35 years ago. They received no recognition by a former President 35 years later. Those young men had their lives turned upside down when they were accused of a hateful, vengeful attack and rape--indeed, it was done by a person who had been convicted of such. Yet, this man asked for these men to be given the death penalty, and these were teenagers who had been found innocent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congresswoman from the great State of Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) for her outspokenness.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from my distinguished colleagues today about policing in our communities and about the loss of innocence, all issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 55 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the honorable Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick from Florida and the co-anchor of this Special Order hour for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, tonight just a few of my colleagues and I gather in this place and at this time to remind the Members of this body and the American people of the cost of progress in this country. I submit to you that there are too many people who have come to believe that progress is inevitable, that history is slanted upward, and that if left to its own devices, this country will magically always do the right thing.

It is not ironic that those are usually also the same people who believe that marches and demonstrations are untimely and excessive. In a very real sense, these are the people who said that Reverend Martin Luther King was a rabble-rouser; that Thurgood Marshall was delusional; that college protests are inconveniences and not to be taken seriously; that the preservation of the status quo is of more social value than is the expansion of opportunity and liberty.

They do further believe that public demonstrations of discontent are more about law and order than about the irrepressible yearning in every human being to unapologetically be free.

What they miss is that all of us want and deserve to be treated with respect and have our dignity intact. What they fail to realize is that all of us want to see our children live in communities where they are safe and valued and have opportunity. Regrettably not all of us have access to the things that make for peace.

In the words of Reverend Martin Luther King, peace is not the absence of noise, but it is the presence of justice. Not all of us are judged by the content of our character nor simply the color of our skin. As long as a child in Brooklyn cannot read and a child in Atlanta and Appalachia may not have a desire to learn, we cannot be complacent in a Nation of great wealth.

What the purveyors of inevitability fail to understand is that freedom and justice have never come to those who waited for someone else to decide it was time for them to be free. Even in this body, there are far too many individuals under the impression that this Nation will become a more perfect Union if we just leave things alone, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Today, and this week, we commemorate the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. What made this a landmark decision was not just that it undermined the fallacious reasoning that made segregation possible in this country, but also the fact that the decision itself was the result of generations of American citizens working diligently in the shadows of American history to push this Nation forward.

Brown v. Board of Education didn't just happen 70 years ago. An entire movement made it possible for the Supreme Court not to ignore the arrival of an idea whose time had come. We are only able to have this commemoration because Black people and honorable White people in this country refused to wait another generation before we could enjoy some of the promises of America.

What happened in that courtroom in 1954 in Arkansas cannot be understood apart from what is happening in the streets of America today.

Progress in America is a fact that cannot be denied, but it did not happen because America wanted to change. This Nation is not a better place to live in because southern segregationists changed their minds. Change happened in America because, though the wheels of God grind slow, they grind exceedingly small but go forward.

That is to say it was nothing but the righteous indignation of ordinary people doing extraordinary things that made justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Just the other day, not far from here in the Capitol in Statuary Hall, we celebrated the statue of Daisy Bates taking her rightful place in Statuary Hall.

As a child, I grew up in Chicago and Mrs. Bates oftentimes came and shared the holidays with my family. It was indeed an honor to be a Member of the 118th Congress and to see the unveiling of her statue, an African-American woman, who at the age of 8, had lost her mother to men that had raped her and killed her and put her in a mill pond in Arkansas never having faced justice, but then to see President Bill Clinton and Governor Mike Huckabee unveil a statue and a highway, a road in her honor, was truly an honor in 1998.

As we celebrated the valorization and veneration of her likeness, I would remind us of how many different kinds of people it takes to move a nation forward in the direction of its principles on paper.

Daisy Bates was a publisher and an activist who gave counsel to the Little Rock Nine, nine children who were denied access to a public education under Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas.

She was someone instrumental in the effort to undermine the Nation's separate but equal law, a Jim Crow-era law that still remained. She didn't come out of her mother's womb wanting to be an activist, but she lived in a country where activism was as much a necessity as breathing. When our young children are gathering up on the campuses today, they yearn for freedom.

She did what she had to do for herself and her progeny. This Nation owes her our deepest gratitude for laying such a costly sacrifice upon the altars of equity and equality in America.

To each and all of the remarkable trailblazers who dedicated their lives to the possibility of unbridled opportunity in this country, we owe you and Miss Daisy Bates our devotion, and we owe our children common sense.

Do not be deceived. We still need people who are willing to do extraordinary things in the cause of freedom and justice because when a Black United States airman can be murdered in his house for expressing his Second Amendment right to bear arms while Kyle Rittenhouse can shoot three people and walk down the streets with an AR-15 in his hands and nobody even asks him a question, clearly there is work that still needs to be done in our country.

Be not deceived. As long as women do not get equal pay for equal work, we have work to do. As long as anti-Semitism is taking on a life of its own while anti-Blackness has never truly subsided, there is still work that must be done, and we are the ones to do it.

Let us continue the work. Let us continue to fight for what is right.

Let us challenge our friends to do more, our enemies to do better, and ourselves to never give up. God bless the memory of all of those who kept America strong and made America better.

We commemorate this day for Miss Daisy Bates, the children of Little Rock, and those who brought in a new era of desegregation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, acknowledge the tremendous loss that those families have incurred, and I thank them for their service.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour, along with my distinguished colleague, Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the topic of mental health, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congress and the constituents we represent, and all of America.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey, the honorable Congresswoman Watson Coleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Bonnie Watson Coleman, Congresswoman from the great State of New Jersey in the 12th District, for her remarks.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from the great State of Nevada, the honorable chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Steven Horsford of the Fourth Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Steven Horsford from the Fourth Congressional District of the great State of Nevada.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bowman).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congressman Jamaal Bowman for those insightful words.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Amo).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congressman from the great State of Rhode Island, Congressman Gabe Amo, for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because in the midst of the sound and fury of our current political climate, there remains a profoundly unaddressed and underestimated crisis raging in the hearts and homes of this country's African-American citizens.

It is a melancholy truth that too often what ails the hearts and minds of Black people in this Nation goes unnoticed. Thankfully, May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we are therefore afforded the rare opportunity to acknowledge and address the mental health of African Americans as we would any other health crisis that threatens our quality of life.

While it is true that the mental health of any community must be of grave importance, since none of this Nation's social or economic benefits can truly be appreciated apart from peace of mind, in the case of African Americans, however, the effects of the long history of systemic and outright political terror must be of singular importance.

It must be of singular importance because life has become more complicated, alienation has become more common, and political violence has become more threatening. The times in which we live necessitate a greater emphasis and consideration of the mental health of this country's most vulnerable citizens.

At a time when social media proliferates our lives with doomscrolling and mean world syndrome, we would be foolish to underestimate the impact and influence of what living in the digital age happens to be doing to our minds.

I rise tonight because it is time for us to raise greater awareness about the confluence of mental health issues stalking two generations of African Americans like never before.

I rise tonight because we must henceforth remove the stigma of openly dealing with a public health issue we cannot avoid. The time for our accommodating silence must come to an end. The time for us to assign shame is over.

The time for us to portray Black people as super-human protagonists who move through the American drama unbothered and unaffected must be challenged in every way. Black people are as human as everybody else. We suffer from death, dread, disease, and despair like every other community. We may be strong and we may be resilient, but we are not without the scars and stripes that any community with our history would have to bear.

Perhaps there was a time when we were unaware of what the effects of mental health were doing to our very lives and our bodies, but now we know that one out of every five American adults are now suffering from some mental health crisis or concern.

We know that in the United States of America, 21 percent of African Americans reported struggling with mental illness, and we also know that just 39 percent of them received the mental health services that they deserve.

Subsequently, it should not surprise us that in recent years the suicide rate among African-American young people has increased faster than other racial or ethnic groups. It should not surprise us that young people across racial lines are suffering with anxiety, various forms of dysmorphia, and other issues at rates never seen before in the long history of this great country.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services minority office, African-American adults are more likely than White adults to report persistent symptoms of emotional distress, such as sadness and feeling like everything is an effort. In fact, according to the same findings, Black adults living below the poverty line are more than twice as likely to report serious psychological distress than those with more financial security.

What this shows us is that the negative mental health of Black people in this country is often the result of a devious and devastating confluence of issues. That is to say, members of the

Black community, in addition to dealing with social media, the human predicament, and a history of repression, must also face the kind of structural racism that creates barriers to being able to access the care and treatment they both need and deserve.

It is no wonder, then, that only one of every three African Americans living with a mental illness receive any kind of treatment at all. Only one in three. Additionally, in 2020, it was reported that 10 percent of African Americans still do not have health insurance and are among the chronically uninsured. Even with the Affordable Care Act firmly in place--and thank God that we have it--we must do more to get members of the Black community insured. They need both access and the affordability of care.

It should not be the case that just a little over 10 percent of the Black community still cannot get the medical services they require. The overall survival of Black people in this country is far too contingent and tenuous for them not to have this one area of certainty in their life, access to care and mental health care.

Needless to say, without insurance, treatment for mental illness is as unlikely as it is statistically uncommon. These are some of the unique challenges Black people face in an effort to live beyond the choking grip of mental illness, and that is why this month of awareness is so important.

The victims of mental illness should not have to fight this battle alone. They should not have to struggle in the shadows of American life, and Black people in this country who struggle with mental illness should not have to bear this cross with crowns of thorns while all the world goes free.

If every community is susceptible to the vicissitudes of mental illness, then certainly every community should have equal access to the things that make for peace.

The current disparity in access to care is as unacceptable as it is un-American. I say to every African American suffering from mental illness, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have done nothing wrong. You are not guilty of anything, and you need not be shamed into greater levels of unnecessary suffering.

Let the word go forth from this moment forward, mental illness is a health concern compounded by social factors and not the result of a deficiency in character or personal responsibility. People are not suffering from mental illness because they are bad people. And to be sure, people are not suffering from mental illness because they are somehow ethically weak or deficient in their capacity to try harder, as it were.

We have to stop assigning responsibility to the victim when it comes to mental illness the way we used to do with drug addiction and the like. Mental illness could care less about how emotionally strong or morally consistent you are. There is a reason why we call it an illness, and we call it an illness because all of us are potentially susceptible to falling victim to it under the right set of tragic conditions and circumstances.

To the millions of people in America, and particularly to the millions of African Americans, who are suffering from mental illness, I see you, I hear you, I honor your courage, I value your life.

Perhaps, most of all, I stand in solidarity with the possibility of your healing. You are not alone in this time. Your struggle and your sacrifices have not gone unnoticed, and we stand in this solemn place to affirm the dignity of your persistent efforts to be heard and recognized by your government.

I want you to know that your labor has not been in vain. Today, we ask faith leaders in the Black community to help us remove the stigma that prevents people from getting therapy and treatment. Church leaders, mosque leaders, and synagogue leaders are essential elements for the successful recovery of someone getting the help they need.

Prayer and spirituality can help in the effort to eradicate isolation and give victims access to communities of healing, but these benefits must be supported by proven treatments.

There is no reason the Black church and Black mental health professionals cannot work together to bring relief and restoration to the millions of Black people who need it.

Today we call upon the formation of a broad and interdisciplinary approach to mental illness that will not only address the problem but also leave the dignity of the person intact because struggling people are still people, citizens of this country.

Men and women who, in spite of the difficulties they face, are no less worthy of our love and our devotion because this country is only as strong as the weakest among us.

A country that cannot secure the health and well-being of the weak will never be able to protect and sustain the longevity of the strong.

I am convinced that we must do everything in our power to support the expansion of culturally competent care.

In fact, this government should incentivize the practice of creating an army of Black mental health professionals who work on the front lines in this emerging war because whether we know it or not, the future of this Nation and our communities might well depend upon it.

This is not a crisis in the making. This is a crisis already amongst us, and what we do about this issue might well determine the direction of this meandering Republic in days and years to come.

Let us gather the best of the American spirit to accomplish this work. Let us summon the proverbial angels of our better nature.

Let us join hands and lock arms and dedicate our resources so we might preserve all notions of domestic tranquility and let the oppressed go free.

Mr. Speaker, you have heard from my distinguished colleagues about the topic of mental health and all issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your kindness, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 12 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I was not present due to the mistake of rushing to the 2 p.m. HFAC hearing. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 109.

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Stacey Plaskett for her leadership, and I thank my colleague, the Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, for yielding.

Much of the world today has their attention focused on Gaza, and it seems as if Haiti has been ignored. Mr. Speaker, when you consider the long and difficult journey of the Haitian people from bondage to freedom and all that has been done to destabilize and punish Haitian independence, I say to you that Haiti cannot be ignored.

It would be easy to blame the Haitian people for the overwhelming violence being committed on the streets of Port-au-Prince, in Jacmel, and in the countryside, but such thinking would be the result of a tragic reductionism more so intended to manipulate the facts than to teach them. What is happening in Haiti today is the result of what happens when empires and colonial powers conspire to make it economically impossible for liberated countries to flourish and survive.

To think that Haiti had to pay France the equivalent of what would be today $21 billion in 1804 after Dessalines had declared independence-- King Charles X of France, a slaver and a colonial power, had the American Government, after its independence, enforce a payment to American, French, and German bankers and put a tax on the Haitian people for 150 years. Haitians did not stop paying French bankers until 1947.

Yes, a 150-year tax was put on the first freed African group of people to resist slavery and colonialism.

How is it even possible for the world to stand by and allow France to put a tax on the people of Haiti because they dared to do what Americans had done just 20 years prior to the Haitian Revolution?

Mr. Speaker, can you imagine the outcry in this country if Great Britain had required America to pay a freedom tax after the Revolutionary War to make up for lost wages and profits?

Americans would still be angry. Americans would be resentful. More importantly, Americans would still be recovering from having to dedicate most of its GDP to paying an unconscionable tax for the subsequent loans and interest needed to resolve it.

How did it happen that for 150 years the nation of Haiti was trapped in a vicious cycle of economic extortion and exploitation while the rest of the so-called civilized world acted as if making the victim pay the brutalizer was not a crime against humanity and the complete inversion of common sense?

This is what has happened to Haiti. This is the root cause and the base behind the bottomless music of chaos and violence happening in Haiti right now.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., said that violence is the language of the unheard, a point to which I shall add that criminality is the syntax and verbiage of the poor. People who have neither the means nor the opportunity to participate and benefit from the wealth of their own country will, in the end, act against the national interest because the politics of bread is unrelenting.

I stand with all of my colleagues who condemn the violence going on in Haiti because violence is never the answer. More than that, I call on all the Western powers to, once and for all, take their knees off of the neck of the Haitian economy. The world owes the Haitian people an apology and the real support Haiti has never received.

America should celebrate our longest and greatest democratic ally in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti. The Haitian Army fought with America in the American Revolution in Savannah, Georgia. We can end this violence not with soldiers but with real economic investment.

If the manifest destiny of America is to be concerned about the quality of life in our hemisphere, then the investment we make in Haiti is, in effect, an investment in the future stability of the neighborhood we live in. Charity begins at home, our Scriptures teach us. It is about time the Nation and the world support Haitians' self- determination.

Madam Speaker, I thank my honorable colleague from the great State of Florida (Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick).

I thank the Honorable Frederica Wilson for her outstanding work. I thank my honorable friend from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Payne) for his consistency and caring for this truly significant cause.

Madam Speaker, tonight, as we gather to discuss what is, for me, a most important area of concern, I am reminded of how overdue and necessary the concern for Black men in this Chamber happens to be.

If it is true that Black women are the most marginalized, overlooked, and economically oppressed group in America, then it is the case that Black men are, without question, the most criminalized and misunderstood.

No other community in America has had to deal with the detrimental effects of the prison industrial complex as Black men have.

Let me remind my colleagues that one in three African-American children, boys born after the year 2001, will spend time in prison over the course of their lifetime in America.

It is still the case that 1 in 230 Black boys are detained in juvenile facilities across this country. It is still the case that 1 in 1,000 Black boys will die at the hands of the police in our country. It is still the case that one in three Black children live in poverty.

The vulnerabilities abound. The misunderstandings amalgamate. The suffering continues. There is simply no other group in America more commodified and policed than the bodies and souls of young Black men.

Yet, compared to almost any other group, Black men have been some of the most dedicated devotees to the principles of America. Black men have fought and died in every war this country has ever had. From the Revolutionary War in 1776 to the war in Afghanistan, Black men have stood up for what it means to be an American. Black men have died on the beaches of Normandy and in the killing fields of Vietnam. Black men gave their lives in Korea and in both World War I and II.

Let us not forget the recent deaths of three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers, men and women who were killed in Jordan near the Syrian border.

Most of the time, when Black men were dying for America, America was about the business of denying them both their humanity and their rights. For most of the 248 years of this country, the relationship between Black men and America has been one of unrequited love.

When Black men stood up for American independence, America persisted in keeping Black men in slavery and counted them as three-fifths of a person.

When Black men fought for the western expansion of this country, America rewarded Black men by then denying them 40 acres and a mule and access to the homestead grants.

When America went off to war in Europe to fight for liberation of England and France against the demonic assault of Hitler and the Nazis, Black men fought for the liberation of other people--and then came home to segregation, Jim Crow, and second-class citizenship.

America rebuilt Europe but did nothing for Black communities. America rebuilt Japan and left Black men and boys suffering without a national agenda. America defended South Korea but left Black men completely defenseless in the face of unregulated racial violence and Jim Crow economics.

After the Holocaust, America rightly supported the creation of Israel and a homeland for persecuted Jewish people but left the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, parts of Detroit, and all throughout the South, all the places where Black men seek refuge and live, without proper political and economic consideration.

The single greatest factor in the creation of the middle class in this country was the GI Bill, but even after Black men fought in the same war that made White men eligible for the GI Bill, Black soldiers were consistently denied and impeded from receiving what they deserved as a result of their sacrifice.

This is the unbroken chain of disappointing events. This predictable pattern of historical contradictions of unrequited devotion has peppered and persecuted the humanity of Black men unjustly.

Today, Black men and boys stand as the lone group in America still waiting for the Nation to understand their development to be an indispensable part of the future of this Nation.

As I stand here tonight, I ask my colleagues: Where is the national development plan for Black men and boys? If the Nation made a concerted effort to lock up two generations of Black men and boys in the criminal industrial complex, then surely this Nation should dedicate intentional efforts to the restoration of Black men from that kind of brokenness. It is unnatural.

I think it is about time that the Federal Government intentionally put Black men on the agenda. How is it that the Nation can have a plan for everyone else, but it is completely bereft of ideas when it comes to the restoration of Black boys?

Black children are the only people in America who live in a country that has second-class schools, first-class prisons, and third-class water infrastructure.

We need a legislative agenda that will enhance the lives and future of Black men and boys. We need to set aside resources and enact policies that will facilitate the uplifting of a community, the community of Black men.

We need to enforce an agenda that will prosecute those who use their power, status, and influence to harm and criminalize those without justification or cause and one that will recognize the dignity and safety of Black men as a national priority.

We can start by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We can start by passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

I call on every Member of the United States Senate to stop playing with the future of Black men because Black men are not pawns to be played with on the battlefield of identity politics but are, rather, the children of God, just like everyone else in this country.

Thankfully, because of President Biden's stewardship of the economy, Black unemployment is the lowest it has ever been, but more needs to be done.

Madam Speaker, one out of three Black families still has negative wealth--or no money, meaning they are in debt, living paycheck to paycheck. One out of every four Black children born in 1990 will experience the incarceration of their fathers in their lifetimes. One out of every six Black boys is suspended from school. It is still the case that one in nine Black children will enter the foster care system and have to live with the devastation that comes along with that.

This should not be done at the expense of any other community but should happen in concert with how we address the needs of the disinherited and marginalized amongst us.

We have already seen what Black men can do when the game is fair and the rules are made public. Black men can excel at sports, not merely because we are physically gifted but, rather, because the game cannot be rigged. When the rules are clear and everyone has the opportunity to play by the same standards, we can win. When the playing field is even and nobody gets to tilt the game in their favor, Black men can thrive.

Madam Speaker, I say to my friends today that we need Black men to

thrive in America. We need all the genius and creativity that Black men have to offer.

This Nation would be unlivable without the genius of Frederick Douglass and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

What would America be without the literary power of James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison?

This Nation would be an incomplete project without what Black men have given to this country. Let us recommit ourselves to the expanding future of Black men and boys. In doing so, let us reaffirm our commitment to one another.