Donald M. Payne: “Let me thank the gentleman from New York. It is really an honor and a privilege to stand here with him as one of the…”

“Let me thank the gentleman from New York. It is really an honor and a privilege to stand here with him as one of the freshmen Members in the 113th Congress to discuss an issue that has plagued this Nation for centuries. I am here tonight to talk to you about an issue that has interested me for most of my life, and it is the issue around people having respect for one another, irrespective of their racial makeup. I grew up in Newark, New Jersey, which is a town, the largest city in the State of New Jersey, with many suburbs surrounding that metropolis, and our travels in and out of those communities were fraught at some times with peril for young men. So that was 40 years ago. But fast-forward to the past 18 months, and what do we have? We have the same situation still before us. A young boy armed with a bag of candy and a drink is profiled and followed. The car follows him, and then the individual gets out of the car and follows the young man on foot. Now, at 17, I wonder how I would have felt if a car had followed me, a grown man gets out of the car and continues to follow me. It is a situation that I have thought about over the past 18 months because of my triplet children. Two are boys who just turned 15, so they're right around Trayvon Martin's age. And I wonder: Have I taught them enough to be safe? Will they find themselves in this position?…”