Gwen Moore: “It was a stigma, and I was the welfare queen. Barbara came and befriended me, and she went where the need was the…”

“It was a stigma, and I was the welfare queen. Barbara came and befriended me, and she went where the need was the greatest. Barbara Lee was our United Nations representative. We talked about all of her international impact, and Barbara Lee was our Congress United Nations representative. Barbara, you did so much in that space to bring the American side to have us visiting the U.N. because there are so many people in the United States that are not necessarily as supportive of the world and the United Nations, but you represented us so well. We have a country in our own hemisphere, Cuba, that is right in our hemisphere, Haiti, right in our hemisphere, full of people who are poor and destitute and marginalized, and Barbara Lee being that broker- dealer was not ashamed of them. She was not someone who shied away from them even though there was not only stigma but contempt and disdain and disbelief in them. Barbara went to Cuba. She has been to Cuba so many times. The last time she went to Cuba, I went with her, and as she was introducing all of us there, she introduced me and said, well, the reason that Gwen Moore is here is because she said that if I came back to Cuba one more time without her, she was going to kill me. That is how I got a chance to go to another country in our hemisphere and really see the resources that this country could bring to us.…”