On the recordJuly 25, 2013
Monday, July 29, will be the fifth anniversary of the passage in this House of the first and only apology for slavery and Jim Crow laws in this Nation's history. This Nation had 246 years of slavery and over 100 years of Jim Crow. The resolution, which passed with only two Republican sponsors, Wayne Gilchrist and Phil English, said that we needed to rectify the lingering consequences of slavery and Jim Crow. Indeed, we still need to. There are many areas in the criminal justice system that show this, such as racial profiling, that the likelihood of being arrested for marijuana is four times as much if you're African American than white, and stiffer sentencing if you are African American. The need for public health and public education, and for jobs, more significant, and a much lower net worth among African Americans, are all vestiges of Jim Crow and slavery. As we look toward the fifth anniversary of that resolution and the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington, both sides of this aisle need to look toward the least of these--people who have been discriminated against and enslaved by our Nation's laws--and rectify those lingering consequences. ____________________
