Building A Beloved Community
Floor Speech
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour, as we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose national holiday was yesterday and who would have been 97 years old on January 15.
Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago today was Martin Luther King Day. It was also Inauguration Day. As I sat in the rotunda watching the President take the oath of office, I couldn't help but ponder the final question that Dr. King pondered in the last year of his life: Where do we go from here? Chaos or community.
Dr. King asked this question after the victory of the Civil Rights Act and after the victory of the Voting Rights Act. He pondered what the Black community should do with this extraordinary power, the power of the vote, when for the first time in American history, a government by, of, and for the people finally included Black Americans.
He focused on addressing poverty. He focused on addressing discrimination. He focused on addressing war. I thought about another speech that he gave shortly before he died called: ``Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.''
Before Inauguration Day, one of the architects of Project 2025, which has been the blueprint for the second Trump administration, said this is the second American Revolution, which will be peaceful if the left allows it. I thought about what Dr. King would say today. His words remain relevant.
Within hours of the President taking his oath of office, chaos was unleashed. Through an attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we saw over the past year efforts to roll back the hard-won victories of the civil rights movement.
We see at the Supreme Court right now a case that could gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act after the court gutted section 5 and section 4 effectively in the Shelby County v. Holder case.
We have seen Black and Brown communities, including American citizens, living in terror as ICE agents show up on streets, door to door, in our courthouses, and on the way to school, grabbing people and violating their due process rights.
We have seen trade wars that make the cost of everything go up. We have seen a Federal workforce--which was the doorway to the middle class for many Black Americans--we have seen a Federal workforce, in the words of Russell Vought, ``traumatized.'' We have seen the largest cuts to food assistance and healthcare coverage in American history. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Chaos has been unleashed.
Dr. King in his time, while he fought chaos, he stayed focused on community. He stayed focused on building what he called the beloved community. I think the beloved community is best described as a community in which we care for one another. It is where we feed the hungry, where we care for the sick, and where we house the homeless.
He focused on making sure that the promises upon which this country was founded ring true for every American.
Before he died, he wondered if the dream that he talked about on the March on Washington had become a nightmare and was too far out of reach. Yet, on the night before he died, he told us that he had seen the Promised Land, that he wouldn't get there with us, but he still believed in the power of community and the power of the beloved community.
Today, the Congressional Black Caucus is carrying forward his work. We are his legacy. We ensure that what he fought for--what John Lewis fought for, and what millions of Americans have fought for--since the first day in 1619, when Africans were brought to these shores involuntarily--endures. From day one, through acts of rebellion, resistance, and self-liberation, fought for an America that included them, and we the people.
We carry out that legacy, and we will fight the chaos every single day to ensure that his work continues. Whether it is expanding the right to vote, whether it is fighting unjust wars, whether it is working to eradicate poverty, whether it is standing up for the constitutional rights of every American, as the conscience of the Congress, we will continue that legacy.
Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield to our chairwoman, the Congresswoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I am Representative Yvette D. Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, proudly representing New York's Ninth Congressional District in central and south Brooklyn.
I thank Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan for anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight with my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus to commemorate the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King held an unyielding belief that women and men everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal. He used the power of words and the example of nonviolent resistance to bring us closer to racial and economic justice.
Dr. King was a man of courage, principles, and faith. We are forever in his debt. Today, his example inspires us all toward our highest ideals as Americans. As we gather to honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an American hero and patriot, we are keenly aware of the pivotal moment in history in which we stand and of the forces actively working to undermine his life's work.
At a time when the most vulnerable communities in our Nation are under relentless attack, the Congressional Black Caucus continues to uphold Dr. King's legacy, rooted in justice, fairness, and equity for all.
Today, ironically, also marks the 1-year anniversary of the Trump administration. As we reflect on the damage that this administration has inflicted on communities across this Nation, we call on our colleagues across the aisle to honor the teachings and philosophy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to work with us to reject the hateful agenda that has taken hold.
Dr. King devoted his life to reminding us that silence in the face of injustice is not an option. As he so powerfully said: ``Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.''
The Congressional Black Caucus refuses to remain silent in the face of the pain this administration inflicts on the American people, from the assaults on voting rights with the looming Louisiana v. Callais decision before the Supreme Court, to deepening economic inequality, to the threats against our Nation's healthcare.
Today, we are recommitting ourselves to the fight of keeping Dr. King's dream and his mission alive.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair for her words.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to our immediate past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressman from Nevada's Fourth, Steven Horsford.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the Congresswoman from North Carolina's Fourth District, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Foushee.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. I thank Congressman Ivey for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, you see behind me a quote from Dr. King that he gave in an interview in 1967 where he talks about how in many ways the dream that he articulated in the march on Washington had become a nightmare. Most people are surprised by that.
Why did it become a nightmare?
It became a nightmare because after the victories of the Civil Rights Act, after the victory of the Voting Rights Act, when he really began to address the systemic issues facing this country of poverty, of hatred, of war, he began to see how deeply ingrained in American culture racism really was.
He began to see that the systemic racism couldn't just be overcome with laws. I think for many African Americans today that is the heartbreak that we face. When Dr. King spoke at the march on Washington, he said that in many ways the marchers had come to collect on a promissory note in our Declaration of Independence written 250 years ago, which promised that all men were endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson didn't mean all men. He didn't include the men, women, and children that he owned, including his children and the mother of those children.
When James Madison, the architect of the Constitution wrote the Virginia Plan that led to the Constitution in the beginning, ``We the people . . . in order to form a more perfect Union'' and laid out a vision of government by, of, and for the people, it didn't include all the people.
My ancestors, our ancestors here in the Congressional Black Caucus, weren't even deemed people. They were deemed three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportionment. They were treated as property and in some cases animals.
We have a country that was literally built on the backs of a whole race of people with an ideal that was revolutionary: it said the power of government derives from the people.
My ancestors believed in that ideal just as much as yours, Mr. Speaker, but it took us a long time to participate in that government, in that promise. That is what the civil rights movement was about.
It was also about recognizing the basic decency and dignity of every human being, regardless of where they are born, regardless of how they worship, regardless of the color of their skin.
We still have a long way to go, because what diversity, equity, and inclusion recognizes is that when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and all of the laws that were passed because of the work of Dr. King, they weren't a magic wand that erased over 300 years of the impact of slavery and Jim Crow. That requires intention, intentional unwinding to recognize that you have people like my mother's family, who her parents, her brothers, and her sisters didn't go to school beyond the eighth grade because the State of Mississippi didn't find it important to educate Black children, and while the Catholic church did, they only educated Black children until the eighth grade. Their opportunities were limited.
You had neighborhoods like Jackson Ward that I represent that was once the Harlem of the South, decisions were made to cut that neighborhood in half by a highway and segregate part of that neighborhood away from everything that they needed. Those were intentional decisions that were made rooted in this community doesn't matter.
So, part of the nightmare has been the very things used to try to erase the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery have now been weaponized against that progress. When you see the President of the United States deride the very things used to try to eradicate the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery to divide again, to wedge, to sow division, it is as old as time.
The history of this country has been every time we make progress towards the ideal, there is backlash, and it involves three things: violence, propaganda, and voter suppression.
My great-grandfather lived through the first backlash. He was a man born on a plantation. His parents were enslaved. He exercised his right to vote after he was given a literacy test. He got all the questions right, and he heard the registrar say--and this is the only time you will hear me use this word is in a direct quote--``I need more questions because this nigger got them all right.'' He was on a list, do not register this man to vote.
My parents saw the second backlash to the civil rights movement. We are in the third backlash now.
What the backlash involves is propaganda that breaks up coalitions, whether it was a coalition of previously enslaved Black men and poor nonlandowning Whites who came together during Reconstruction to rebuild this Nation, the backlash to that involved racial terror lynching, or the lie of white supremacy and a rash of voter suppression laws that completely ignored the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The backlash in the civil rights movement of Dr. King was a Southern strategy that intentionally carved a wedge between Black and White communities--it was intentional in order to suppress the vote--and the murder of our leaders who fought to change those laws and to change the system.
We are in that backlash right now. We have a choice, and Dr. King spelled it out. We decide where we go from here.
We decide: Is it more chaos, division, hatred, propaganda, violence, voter suppression, and tyranny where we pit one group against another to stay in power?
That is one choice.
Dr. King gave his life for community where we come together, where we work together, and where we uplift each other. We care for one another, we love one another, and we live up to the ideal upon which this country was founded.
He died for that because it meant some people found that idea dangerous.
We, the Congressional Black Caucus, stand here today recommitted to making his dream a reality. We won't give in to the nightmare. We will not give in to the chaos. Not only will we fight the chaos, we will fight for community. We can't do it alone.
Just like the civil rights movement during Reconstruction and just like the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, it required people coming together from all walks of life putting aside hatred and division and loving their neighbor and their enemy. We can do that. We need a little love today. We need a little light in the darkness. We need community in the midst of the chaos.
We have to do it because while we are fighting the same fights that our parents, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents fought, we cannot leave those fights to our children, our grandchildren, or our great-grandchildren if we expect this country to survive.
That is because what Dr. King also recognized was that now human beings hold the power to destroy each other and to destroy this planet. If we don't get ahold of our hatred, then a lot of lives will be destroyed.
That is not what Dr. King wanted. That is not what people elect us to do. They elect us to help people and solve problems. They elect us to focus on community. Let's not give into the chaos.
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