Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEEKS. I want to thank my friend and colleague, a great attorney,
a great legislator, for leading this effort this evening, for not only
here on the floor of the House of Representatives but for what you do
every day; and, in fact, it is an example of what we could follow, how
you lead in your district, especially in Brooklyn.
Rallying around, as I will talk about later, when you saw a
prosecutor not do his job, you were one that led in Brooklyn to say the
people will get a people's prosecutor. And folks went to the polls.
When someone said it couldn't be done, where you led and helped make it
happen, where an incumbent forgot his way and was not representing the
people, you helped people get together to go to the polls and have a
new prosecutor in Brooklyn to move forward. We thank you for that
leadership.
Today we talk about Black in America. What Ferguson says about where
we are and where we need to go.
Now, as Congressman Jeffries has said, I am a former prosecutor, so I
know about the grand jury system. I know the failure of the grand jury
process directed or, as some would argue, manipulated by county
prosecutor Robert McCulloch to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in
the shooting death of Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed Ferguson,
Missouri, teenager, undermines public confidence in the very notion of
equal administration of justice.
Now, when you go before a grand jury, all you have to show is that
there is probable cause--probable cause, the lowest standard there is--
that a crime was committed. And when you see the process that this
prosecutor went through, he tried to try a case, or he came in with a
preconceived thought that he did not want an indictment here. I don't
know of any prosecutors that go into the grand jury and don't at least,
after it is all done, ask for an indictment. Mr. McCulloch never asked
for an indictment in this case.

The tragic circumstances in Ferguson and other unfortunate instances
around the country have sparked a movement for justice, equality, and
change that I believe is critical to the communities affected by
miscarriages of justice. But this movement is not just for those
communities. Indeed, the United States of America needs this movement.
As others have said, this is an American problem. As Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., once said, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.'' Racial disparities of any kind are troubling for our
entire Nation.
And so, though we have elected President Barack Obama here in the
United States, I heard some say that we were in a post-racial America.
No, we are not. For racism is still alive and well in the United States
of America. We have got work to do.
So where do we go?
This movement, with its courageous contingent of young activists, is
quickly learning, adapting, applying, and innovating on the most
effective methods and models of the civil rights movements of previous
generations. As this movement continues to grow and takes every
opportunity to focus its demands, expand its outreach, develop its
activists in the discipline of peaceful direct action, and deepen its
understanding of how to apply mass pressure on policymakers, it will
cascade not simply to interrupt business as usual, but to generate
electoral participation on levels unseen in generations. This movement
has the potential to transform the tragedy in Ferguson into a historic
turning point in the centuries-long struggle for freedom, justice, and
equality.
The Congressional Black Caucus is part of this moment and is a part
of this movement. Tens of thousands of Federal, State, and local
elected officials, civic leaders, civil rights organizations,
activists, clergies, lawyers, educators, artists, athletes, business
owners, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary working
people of all ages from all over America are part of this movement.
So now is the time for America to come together to reform police
practices, redress patterns of racial disparities in the justice
system, and to hold police accountable for the use of excessive force,
especially deadly force. Now is the time to match nonviolent direct
action with meaningful legislative and administrative action. Now is
the time for the Federal Government to act, for Congress to act, for
courts to act, for State legislatures to act, for county and city
governments to act.
Now is the time, my friends, to register to vote, because soon, very
soon, it will be time to act at the ballot boxes. Only then will these
voices be truly heard in every corner of every county and throughout
this country. Then the world will know that unwarranted violence and
abuse of power has no home in America; injustice has no seat in our
democratic institutions. Only then will we honor the sacrifice of those
who have paid the ultimate price and begin to heal a Nation of many who
aspire to become one.
Yes, indeed, we have come a long way; but yes, indeed, we have a
long, long, long way to go.
I thank the gentleman for the time.

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