G. K. Butterfield: “I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) for yielding and also for her passion and her extraordinary work on…”

“I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) for yielding and also for her passion and her extraordinary work on the issue of poverty and related causes. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson made a very bold pronouncement. He declared a national war on poverty. President Johnson helped pave the way for so many low-income families, and I am proud today to recognize his immeasurable contributions to the battle against poverty. I understand that President Johnson's daughter is still on Capitol Hill. She visited with the Congressional Black Caucus today, and I just wanted to publicly thank her and thank the Johnson family for their contributions to America. Just last year, we commemorated the 50th anniversaries of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King's historic speech, imploring all Americans to aspire towards a society of equality and acceptance. Dr. King's speech illustrated the racial realities faced by people of color since before even the Civil War. In 1964, President Johnson delivered a historic State of the Union Address right in this Chamber that exposed the tough racial inequalities present in the 1960s. He gave voice to the poor by contrasting the stark economic differences between the wealthy and the poor, and inspired a series of transformative laws, including the Civil Rights Act and the Economic Opportunity Act. Those laws, Mr.…”