Barbara Lee: “400 years ago, as we have heard tonight, the first slave ship arrived in Virginia. This began one of the darkest…”

“400 years ago, as we have heard tonight, the first slave ship arrived in Virginia. This began one of the darkest chapters in American history. During the course of over 250 years of slavery--that is, government- sanctioned slavery in America--families were ripped apart. People were beaten and brutalized. Men, women, and children were sold and traded like objects. And to this day, Black communities continue to suffer from the generational trauma from these crimes against humanity. That was followed by another 75 years of racism and domestic terrorism under Jim Crow and segregation, during which thousands of African Americans were lynched. Churches were bombed. Entire communities were burned to the ground in the not-so-recent, distant past. Racist economic policies also institutionalized the racial hierarchy established by slavery and kept African Americans trapped and segregated disproportionately in poverty: policies like land seizure laws that left African American farmers at risk of having their land seized and turned over to their White peers; the Fair Labor Standards Act, which excluded professions dominated by African Americans from minimum wage protections; the separate but equal doctrine in schools and public facilities; the segregation of the armed services, in which my dad served in a segregated military, fighting in two wars for our country.…”