Peaceful Protest is the Best Protest

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

I rise here in the House of Representatives because many persons made great sacrifices so that I would have this opportunity to stand and speak today.

Many of these persons were the persons who protested. They faced Bull Connor's dogs and Jim Crow's laws. They know what a billy club hurts like. They know what losing a loved one to a cause feels like. These were the protestors that made it possible.

I can only imagine what would have happened had the Honorable John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and Jimmy Lee Jackson, those persons who protested--Jimmy Lee Jackson lost his life; Reverend C. T. Vivian was there on the Edmund Pettus Bridge--if they had assaulted the police, if they had confronted the police and met them with force, would I be standing here today? I think not.

I believe that peaceful protest has made it possible for a good many Members of Congress to be here. Not all of us are here because we are so smart. A good many of us are here because others made great sacrifice so that we would have these opportunities.

This is why I stand here today to say that we can peacefully protest; we can be disruptive without being destructive.

If you are being destructive, you are not helping the cause.

Peaceful protest is the best protest. It is what has made a difference for so many of us in so many ways: We have integrated facilities because of peaceful protest; labor laws have been changed because of peaceful protest; persons have the right to vote because of peaceful protest.

Peaceful protest is the best protest, and it has made a difference in the lives of a good many people in this country.

So I absolutely salute those who peacefully protest, and I do not condone those who protest otherwise.

Now, with reference to the constabulary, there have been unidentified persons, Federal agents, who have been policing the streets of American cities. They do not have the right to pick people up indiscriminately. They do not have the right to take people away and hold them and then drop them off at some location. They are not within the law when they do this, and officers of the law should not break the law. These are unidentified Federal agents, and they must be stopped. This is not the American way.

I support the law as it relates to the protestors; I support the law as it relates to the Federal agents. All should obey the law.

Now, you say to me: ``Well, how is it that you went to jail?'' Well, I went to jail, and I was willing to suffer the consequences. I was protesting. I was in the middle of the street, as a matter of fact, here in Washington, D.C., when I went to jail once. I was there, and I suffered my consequences.

Dr. King wrote his ``Letter from Birmingham Jail'' from the Birmingham Jail.

It is disruptive action, not destructive action. This was a disruption that we created in the streets. It was a disruption that caused Dr. King to go to jail. It was not destruction.

If you destroy things, you are not within the law. Do not break the law in the sense that you are going to destroy things. Destruction is not the way to protest. Disruption is how we get it done.

And with reference to the constabulary: follow the law. We cannot have law enforcement officers breaking the law under the guise of trying to protect statues and other things from destruction. Neither of these two groups can bring about the kind of justice that we are looking for.

We are protesting now because of the brutality that many people have suffered, and some have lost their lives at the hands of the constabulary.

But we are also protesting because we are being discriminated as it relates to lending. When people don't get the loans that they qualify for, their livelihoods are being stolen from them, their opportunities are being stolen from them. So we are protesting discrimination in lending.

We are protesting discrimination in hiring and promotions. There is this notion that we should have kitchen table issues discussed. Well, discrimination in hiring is a kitchen table issue. Those who believe that jobs without discrimination as a conversation is not a kitchen table issue, you are wrong. People discuss these things, and we should.

We have to make sure that every person is treated equally under the law in the United States of America.

Peaceful protest is the best protest. Law enforcement officers must follow the law.

The protestation exceeds what is happening with the constabulary. It moves into the banks; it moves into our homes; it moves into our lives.

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