Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Illinois and the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this Special Order tonight. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to organize these efforts, and I want to thank them both for the time and effort that they have put into this. We have heard a lot about what the Congressional Black Caucus has done over the years. There are two areas that I have been personally involved in with the CBC effort in the areas of education and criminal justice reform. On both we have worked hard and achieved bipartisan support. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is a civil rights bill, makes sure that the admonition in Brown v. Board of Education becomes a reality. It says that no child shall reasonably be expected to succeed in life if denied the opportunity of an education and such an opportunity must be made available to all on equal terms. That is what the Brown decision held. But we know that we don't have equal education in America because we fund it primarily through the real estate tax, guaranteeing that wealthy areas will have more resources for education than low-income areas. So 50 years ago we passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provides funding directed primarily to help the challenges in educating low-income children particularly in concentrated areas of poverty.…”