I thank Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. Mr. Speaker, it is indeed my honor to yield to my coanchor, my classmate, my friend, the Congressman from the Eighth Congressional District of New York. I wanted to pause for a moment and think…

I and my cosponsors have introduced two pieces of legislation that I certainly hope you will say a kind word for.

the overwhelming unemployment rate facing young African American men.

I am glad that people in high places want to come and learn about what we do.

These bills are bipartisan.

I am going to have something that is called the Beatty rule where we would like to start with Federal organizations like yours and simply say that, as you look at these positions, you actually identify and at least interview one person who…

I want to make sure that we stay focused on that. I think we can do better than that.

We want to set that up. It will come under the Secretary of Labor, who will coordinate these programs.

We want scholarships to get these young kids in there.

I too join that letter that hundreds of Members of Congress sent to you and let me just say thank you for that quick response.

I have called for the revamp of the Community Reinvestment Act in a letter that was just mailed to a number of banking regulators and cosigned by 40 of my colleagues.

This is a massive fraud of historic proportions that begs the question of what further reforms may be needed.

And yet, despite this progress, my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle are intent on dismantling the FSOC.

With Wall Street reform, we created the FSOC to look across the entire financial system, identifying gaps that may exist between regulators and action to prevent another meltdown.

But make no mistake, we need to be doing more, especially to address the wealth gap, and particularly for African American and Hispanic households, whose economic security was devastated by the financial crisis.

What this means is that Wall Street reform is working as it should.

We know, as Congressman Ellison just said, in most of our communities we have long, long wait lists for them to get a Section 8 voucher.

I see it as our role, your role, and especially those who are hands-on running public authorities, that you have a special obligation.

I am appalled sitting here hearing from my colleagues and learning that earlier some 27 people were evicted...

Let me just say thank you to Congressman Jeffries for that question. If I think of one of my favorite quotes by Shirley Chisholm, Mr. Speaker, she said: ``You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines . . . you make progress by…

I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, to my colleague, I am so honored to be here tonight speaking in this Chamber and to the American people about the Congressional Black Caucus: 45 years of leadership, from promise to progress. You have…

Thank you, Congressman Jeffries, for mentioning 10-20- 30. You are absolutely right that it would benefit Republican districts and their constituents more than many of our constituents. But I think that is because, when we think of…

I think that a better style for the hearing would be, 'Don't Bother Me with Facts; My Mind is Made Up.'

So if they really thought that this was a problem, seems like you would want to be more armed by being in a classified setting where you could get real information.

You would think that we would have a parade; the President would be saluted; the people who negotiated would be applauded.