Floor Statements

I am a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, better known as the CBC. Currently, the CBC is chaired by the Honorable Barbara Lee from the Ninth Congressional District of California. My name is Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, representing the 11th District of Ohio.

CBC members are advocates for the human family nationally and internationally and have played a significant role as local and regional activists. We continue to work diligently to be the conscience of the Congress.

But understand all politics are local. Therefore, we provide dedicated and focused service to the citizens and the congressional districts we serve.

The vision of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus to promote the public welfare through legislation designed to meet the needs of millions of neglected citizens continues to be our focal point for the legislative work and political activities of the Congressional Black Caucus today. More than ever, it is necessary that we, as leaders, help those whom we serve. As the floor moderator today for the Congressional Black Caucus special order hour, I have to add that it is more important than ever that we put the money where our mouth is.

For the past 8 years, we have lived in a cloud of corporate misdeeds, back-room dealings, and extreme tax cuts that have only benefited the wealthiest people in this Nation. Due to the Bush administration's lack of government oversight, intervention and inattention, we now face the toughest economy in our lifetime.

Such neglect and inattention have led to this storm called a housing crisis, a collapse of the stock market and rising health care costs that leaves most Americans in a state of shock. In 2008, nearly 4 million jobs were lost across the Nation. In February of this year, the Greater Cleveland area unemployment rate was at a staggering 10.2 percent. The overall African-American unemployment rate is even greater, currently over 13 percent.

In these dire times, something must be done to help our Nation and our people get back on their feet. The best way to address these issues and illustrate our desire to better the lives of so many Americans is with our budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.

I want to thank President Obama for his thoughtful budget that signals a new era of responsibility. I want to applaud his attention to our Nation's most urgent needs, job training and job creation, health care and education.

I would like to thank him for the particular attention that this budget gives to the mental health needs of our veterans. Finally, I applaud this administration for paying attention to those that need us the most, our children and our elderly.

As the former mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, and on behalf of all mayors and all local leaders, I want to focus on the administration's full funding of Community Development Block Grants. The fiscal year 2010 budget provides $4.5 billion to fully fund this program.

As legislators, our number one priority is to get ourselves out of this current economic crisis. To accomplish this, we must look to programs that help improve and grow our economy. Historically, for every $1 of funding through a Community Development Block Grant, nearly $3 is leveraged for economic development projects.

When a city needs a grocery store or more affordable housing, this block grant funding is utilized and helps build neighborhoods. This is one of the few programs where the money goes directly to the locality. It does not get tied up in State government or Federal affairs. The money immediately goes to the areas where local leaders can help expand economic opportunities for their local citizens.

In Cleveland, Community Development Block Grant dollars have gone to assist our housing trust fund. Every dollar of investment leverages $5 of private investment. In 2008, housing trust fund funds were committed to projects that supported nearly 700 energy efficient housing units.

This money has also gone to combat foreclosure. CDBG funds are the principal source of funds for supporting a range of activities to respond to the aftermath of foreclosures. This year, block grants can provide $300,000 for anti-predatory lending programs administered by Cleveland's Department of Consumer Affairs and other nonprofit agencies, over $400,000 for code enforcement and almost $900,000 for nuisance abatement and land reutilization on properties that are either vacant or have been through foreclosure.

Community Development Block Grant dollars will help with housing services for low- or moderate-income families. These funds are a critical source of assistance for seniors and low-income families with funding to repair their homes. This year over $2.2 million is expected to be used for home repair assistance from these funds.

This grant will also helped community-based organizations. Approximately $8 million supports a network of organizations that provide housing services, neighborhood safety programs and community outreach.

Finally, CDBG funding will help city-wide services, housing and financial services such as foreclosure counseling, homeownership counseling, landlord tenant counseling and fair housing assistance. The funds also support nonprofits that offer social services such as educational programming for youth and food programs for our seniors and low-income families.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the distinguished woman and our chair, the gentlelady from California, Ms. Barbara Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your leadership as well.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield to the distinguished Member from the Virgin Islands, Representative Christensen.

Thank very much. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, who is always, in our caucus and in this Congress, a leading advocate for health care reform. I thank her.

At this time I would yield to the distinguished Member from the State of Virginia, Mr. Robert ``Bobby'' Scott.

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Bobby Scott.

For those of us in the Congressional Black Caucus, we clearly know that Representative Scott is the best in the Congress when it comes to analyzing budgets and providing information to his colleagues. So, again, I thank him.

Madam Speaker, I thank you. I thank the members of the CBC for allowing me to act in their behalf tonight; as well as I want to say that we do very much appreciate the fact that we now have an administration and a President who does believe in an honest budget, who does believe in doing the things that are necessary to get this country back on track.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I stand tonight to represent the Congressional Black Caucus for this hour as we talk about Black History Month. The Congressional Black Caucus is proud to anchor this hour.

Currently, the CBC is chaired by the Honorable Barbara Lee from the Ninth Congressional District of California. I am Representative Marcia Fudge, representing the 11th Congressional District of Ohio, here to anchor the hour for the Congressional Black Caucus.

The CBC Members are advocates for families, nationally and internationally, and have played a significant role as local and regional advocates. We continue to work diligently to be the conscience of the Congress, but because all politics are ultimately local, for that reason we provide dedicated and focused services to the citizens of the congressional districts we represent.

The vision of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to promote the public welfare through legislation designed to meet the needs of millions of neglected citizens, continues to be the focal point for the legislative work and political activities of the Congressional Black Caucus today.

To close the month of February, we are proud to present a reflection on black history. Specifically, we would like to take this time to herald the unsung history-makers in the black community.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to our chairperson, Barbara Lee, the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our distinguished Chair for her leadership, and I would now like to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Thank you so much.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield to the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, Mrs. Christensen.

Thank you. What we now call Black History Month was originated in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was selected in deference to Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, who were both born in that month. Further, the NAACP was founded in February and just celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 to train black historians and to collect, preserve and publish documents on black life and black people. He also founded the Journal of Negro History, Associated Publishers, and the Negro Bulletin. Woodson spent his life working to educate all people about the vast contributions made by black men and black women throughout history. Mr. Woodson died on April 3, 1950. Black History Month is his legacy.

I am privileged to commend several trailblazers within the 11th District from the African American community. I would like to begin with Judge Jean Murrell Capers, who is a remarkable individual and a community icon. On the night of President Obama's inauguration, while the world celebrated change, we honored this stalwart in our community, who also helped to make that moment possible. Judge Jean Murrell Capers is one of those individuals who deserves to be recognized for her years of dedication to promoting diversity among elected officials and serving, protecting and upholding the laws of Ohio and this Nation.

Judge Capers graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 1932. She began her career as an educator and earned her J.D. from Cleveland Law School in 1944. She was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1945, and began practicing law that same year. In 1949, she became the first African American woman elected to the Cleveland City Council. She was elected four subsequent times to 2-year terms. Beginning in 1964, Judge Capers began to work tirelessly for a black mayor. Though many doubted her efforts, she was audacious enough to hope. Cleveland's first black mayor, the Honorable Carl Stokes, was elected 3 years later. In 1977, Ms. Capers was appointed Cleveland municipal judge, and was reelected, but was forced to retire in 1986 because of an Ohio law that requires judges to retire at the age of 70.

At the current age of 96, Judge Capers is the oldest active member of the National Bar Association in our district. She is still actively involved in the community, and mentors the next generation of leaders.

It is my privilege to recognize my friend, my sorority sister, mentor, and an unsung hero. I want to say to her that she is so special to us that, on January 22, a flag was flown over our Nation's Capitol in her honor.

I would like to as well recognize Dr. John B. Turner. John B. Turner was a Tuskegee Airman. He was the first black commissioner to be elected in east Cleveland, the first black dean at Case Western Reserve University and the first black dean of any school of social work across this country. He also served the State Department in Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda early in his career. He was a Fulbright Scholar who led a voting drive for the National Council of Churches, and he also stumped for Carl Stokes as mayor of the City of Cleveland.

Mr. Speaker, there is another.

There is Dr. William O. Walker, who was a prominent journalist, publisher and political leader in Cleveland, Ohio, for much of the mid to late 20th century.

W.O. Walker was born in 1896 in Selma, Alabama. He studied at Wilberforce University and Oberlin Business College and began a career in journalism. In 1932, he became the publisher and editor of the Cleveland Call and Post, one of the most influential African American newspapers in the United States. Walker used this weekly paper to educate the community about racial injustices occurring in both Cleveland and across the United States.

He built the newspaper into one of the largest black weeklies in the Nation. As a publisher, he became a power in Cleveland, speaking out for civil rights and exposing discrimination and wrongdoing.

Besides being an editorial voice, he was a mighty political force in the Republican Party. He was a councilman in the 1940s, and in the 1950s became Ohio's first black cabinet member as industrial relations director for Governor James A. Rhodes. At the time of his death, he was under consideration by President Ronald Reagan to become chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

And lastly, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize Mr. Wayne Embry.

Wayne Richard Embry was born in 1937 in Springfield, Ohio. He is a retired basketball player. He was a center forward whose 11-year-career spanned from 1959 to 1969. He played for the Cincinnati Royals, the Boston Celtics, and the Milwaukee Bucks, all of the NBA. He attended Miami University and Tecumseh High School in New Carlisle, Ohio, before that. He played in the NBA All-Star game for five consecutive seasons from 1961 to 1965 and won the NBA championship with the Celtics in 1968.

After retiring as a player, he became the first African American NBA general manager managing the Milwaukee Bucks from 1971 through 1979, the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1986 to 1999, and the Toronto Raptors in 2006. He was selected NBA Executive of the Year in 1992 and 1998.

He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999, not as a player but as a contributor. Mr. Embry is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues for their participation in this evening.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. Speaker, I will close with this last unsung hero, Dr. Julian Earls.

He has been referred to as a Renaissance Man, holding eight university degrees. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia; a Master's degree in radiation biology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, New York; and a Doctorate degree in radiation physics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He completed the equivalent of the Master's degree in environmental health at the University of Michigan and is a graduate of the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School.

He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Science degree by the Vaughn College of Aeronautics in New York, the honorary Doctor of Pedagogy degree by Nova Southeastern University in Florida, the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by North Carolina A&T State University, Norfolk State University, and Wilberforce University in Ohio.

In January 2006, Dr. Earls retired as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio, after a career spanning more than 40 years. As director of NASA Glenn from 2003 to 2005, he managed a budget in excess of 600 hundred million and a workforce of over 3,000 employees.

He was responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the activities required to accomplish the center's mission which included research, technology, and systems development programs in aeronautical propulsion, space propulsion, space power, space communications, and microgravity sciences in combustion and fluid physics.

He is the author of 30 publications and has been a distinguished Honors Visiting Professor at numerous universities.

As a NASA executive, he has received medals for outstanding leadership, exceptional achievement, and distinguished service. He received the Meritorious Executive Presidential Rank Award from President William J. Clinton in 1999 and from President George Bush in 2004.

Dr. Earls has received many humanitarian awards and founded an organization that provides college scholarships for black students. As a mentor, he has guided many students through college and the professions. Recognized internationally for his oratorical skills, Dr. Earls is a Jennings Foundation Distinguished Scholar Lecturer.

In addition to his many scholarly and work-related accomplishments, Dr. Earls is an athlete. He has completed 25 marathons, including the Boston Marathon, and was honored to carry

the Olympic torch on its route through Cleveland for the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is a member of Tau Boule and holds life memberships in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and the NAACP.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you. I thank my colleagues, and again, I thank this Nation for recognizing that black history is indeed American history.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 42 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, February 24, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 128) honoring Miami University for its 200 years of commitment to extraordinary higher education, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have 5 legislative days during which Members may revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on House Resolution 128 into the Record.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of House Resolution 128, which congratulates Miami University for their 200 years of commitment to extraordinary higher education.

Founded in 1809, Miami University was named for the Miami Indian Tribe that inhabited the area known as the Miami Valley Region of Ohio. The university is our Nation's tenth oldest public institution of higher learning.

I want to congratulate Miami University for making their campus a student-centered public university, where students and alumni carry with them a strong sense of loyalty, integrity, and compassion. MU students graduate with the necessary skills and drive to improve the future of our society. The

university is among a prestigious group of schools to produce a Rhodes Scholar, a Truman Scholar, and a Goldwater Scholar in the same academic year.

Among MU's other achievements is their extensive study abroad program. In fact, the university has its own campus in Luxembourg, and 35 percent of Miami students study abroad before they graduate. Students graduate MU ready to solve global problems with the knowledge acquired during their time at Miami University.

Miami University's alumni have a history of service to the United States, including Benjamin Harrison, former U.S. President; many Members of Congress; as well as several governors, generals, and ministers to foreign governments. Additionally, MU is ranked seventh on the Peace Corps' Top 25 list for medium-sized schools, with 39 alumni currently serving as volunteers.

Congratulations are also in order for the university's unparalleled number of nationally prominent collegiate and professional coaches the school has produced. The extraordinary number of successful coaches who got their start at MU has earned the university the nickname ``Cradle of Coaches.'' Furthermore, Miami boasts a distinguished list of professional and Olympic athletes.

This year, as the university community celebrates its 200th anniversary, Miami will reflect on two centuries of achievement and look ahead to many more years of learning, service, and athletic prowess.

Mr. Speaker, once again I express my support for Miami University, and I thank the minority leader for bringing this resolution to the floor. I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Driehaus).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kilroy) for 2 minutes.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Thank you.

Madam Speaker, Leader Boehner, Representative Kaptur, Representative Regula, the Ohio delegation, Members of the 110th Congress, it is, indeed, my pleasure and my privilege to be with you here today.

I want to first just thank my mother and my family and my staff, my friends, the members of my great sorority--Delta Sigma Theta--all of the residents of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, where I served for so many years as mayor, and all of the people of the 11th District for the confidence they placed in me in the last three elections that I have been in over the last 6 weeks. I, as well, would like to thank my predecessors on whose shoulders I stand today--the Honorable Louis Stokes and my very dear friend, the Honorable Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

To all of my colleagues, I say to you that I look forward to working with you because there is much work to be done, and I am certainly up to the task. I am a person who you can count on. I will work hard because I know what my job is, and my job is to serve the people who put me here. I know that my job is to do the most for those who have the least, and so I will work hard because I have promises to keep. I have made promises not only to myself and to the people of the 11th District but to my departed friend. So count on me because I do, indeed, have a promise to keep.

Thank you so much.