Donald M. Payne: “Thank you very much. Because we stand here on the 50th anniversary of school desegregation in the South and 43 years ago…”

“Thank you very much. Because we stand here on the 50th anniversary of school desegregation in the South and 43 years ago after the signing of the civil rights bill of 1964. However, recent events, particularly in the last 2 years, give credence to the saying that all that glitters is not gold. Although we thought we were making tremendous progress, still many problems remain. Two years ago, New Orleans washed away, exposing undertones of class and race that did not go away with the signing of those two momentous decrees, Brown v. the Board of Ed and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Jena, Louisiana, the issue of race, which had been simmering below the surface, had reached the boiling point late last year. Can you imagine that an act of sitting under the unspoken white only tree will garner the reaction of nooses? Not only nooses, but nooses decorated in the school colors being hung from that same tree? There's no mistake the symbolism that nooses hanging from a tree means in the not-so-distant history of America. As a matter of fact, the NAACP was founded in 1909 not for full employment, not for equal accommodation. The simple, original goal was simply to try to stop lynchings, just try to stop lynchings, and here we have nooses put under a tree that is the tree for whites only, to send a message that if you sit here, you don't know what might happen to you in the future.”