Burgess Owens: “we passed a bill today which deals with black history. Black history is being featured this month, the month of…”

“we passed a bill today which deals with black history. Black history is being featured this month, the month of February. A number of my colleagues said they might join me to go further in the exploration of important aspects of black history tonight. I welcome them. I also think that what I have to say tonight about the budget and the proposed Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget is very much related to our concerns with black history. There is an opportunity here with this budget this year and the budgets that come for the next 10 years, an opportunity to deal with an overriding question that ought to concern more Americans, and that is what does one do about the impact and the long-term effects of the 232 years of slavery, the 232 years which denied one group of Americans the opportunity to own property and to gain wealth and, therefore, all of their descendents are behind the rest of the American mainstream population because they did not have any people to inherit anything from; and it appears that for some reason that is related to them individually or genetically, that they just cannot keep up economically with the rest of America. If we look at it without looking at history and without examining the fact that 232 years of slavery denied the right to own property and to accumulate wealth, then one cannot explain the phenomenon.…”