On the recordFebruary 15, 2012
Madam Speaker, this is Black History Month, and I introduced recently a proposal to have a Congressional Gold Medal issued to a cumulative group, the individuals who marched for freedom, sat in, brought about civil rights in our Nation, all the civil rights leaders and workers. In this Nation, to make it the country that Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers wrote about, it took civil rights workers to protest and demonstrate and sometimes go to jail to change this country's path and see to it that all people were created equal, and that all people had equal opportunities in this Nation. I think those people deserve recognition because they made America's promise its reality. To date, we've sent out a letter asking for cosponsors three times to every Member of Congress, and yet we don't have a single Republican with us. This should be a bipartisan effort, and I would ask all my Republican colleagues to ask their LA's to sign on to the Congressional Gold Medal for civil rights workers. It's something we should come together with in a bipartisan fashion because it's as American as apple pie. ____________________





