Greene County Democrat

Tag: and three other Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)

  • Newswire : Congressional Black Caucus reaches historic 62 members while preparing to challenge Trump policies

    Congressional Black Caucus members, Gregory Meeks (NY) Joyce Beatty (OH) Troy Carter (LA) and James Clyburn (SC) speak in 2024

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

     

    The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) will enter the 119th session of Congress with a historic 62 members, marking the largest number of Black federal lawmakers in U.S. history. In total, 67 Black lawmakers will serve, with five Republican members declining to join the caucus. However, this historic milestone comes against the backdrop of a new Trump administration that has signaled sharp policy shifts, including an almost entirely white Cabinet and the implementation of the anti-minority Project 2025.

    The CBC, established in 1971 to advocate for Black and marginalized communities, now represents 120 million Americans, including 41% of Black Americans. Yet its leaders face a steep challenge under a Trump administration openly pursuing policies that could roll back decades of progress in civil rights, healthcare access, and economic equity.

    “We’ve always been the conscience of Congress, no matter who’s in charge,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., a senior CBC member and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But now we have a larger choir of leaders ready to call truth to power, ensuring the voices of the voiceless are heard. This administration poses a danger, and we’re here to counter that.”

    Project 2025 and the Challenge Ahead

    President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is advancing Project 2025, a policy blueprint critics say is designed to dismantle protections for marginalized communities while consolidating power among white conservatives. The plan includes eliminating the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, granting police broad immunity in cases involving unarmed citizens, and reversing diversity and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies.
    In addition to these policy threats, Trump’s Cabinet appointments include figures like Dr. Mehmet Oz, tapped to oversee Medicaid and Medicare, and Linda McMahon, his pick for Secretary of Education, raising alarms about the administration’s priorities. The nearly all-white leadership team underscores a stark contrast to the growing diversity in Congress.
    “It will be interesting to see how this administration interacts with a record number of Black lawmakers,” said Niccara Campbell Wallace, executive director of the Rolling Sea Action Fund. “The CBC’s growth means there are more voices to push back, to advocate for policies that reflect the reality of a diverse America.”

    Historic Firsts in Representation

    While the Trump administration doubles down on policies many see as anti-minority, the new Congress will also usher in a wave of historic firsts. Two Black women will serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate for the first time. Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks join a small but growing list of Black women elected to the Senate, doubling the total from two to four.

    Blunt Rochester, the first woman and Black person to represent Delaware in the Senate, reflected on her groundbreaking victory. “This is a historic step forward for our state and our nation,” she said.

    Alsobrooks, a former Prince George’s County executive, highlighted the broader significance of her win. “In over 2,000 people who have served in the U.S. Senate, only three have looked like me,” she said. “I stand here because of the sacrifices of those who came before me.”

    Oregon’s Janelle Bynum also made history, flipping the state’s 5th Congressional District to become its first Black member of Congress. Bynum, who unseated a Republican incumbent, noted, “It’s not lost on me that I’m one generation removed from segregation. We believed in a vision and didn’t stop until we accomplished our goals.”

    Delaware voters made further history by electing Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress. These victories occurred even as the country faced deep divisions over affirmative action, LGBTQ rights, and racial equity.

    The Role of the CBC

    The CBC’s role as the conscience of Congress will be tested as it confronts an administration bent on undoing civil rights gains. Meeks emphasized that the caucus would oppose policies that disproportionately harm Black and marginalized communities, from healthcare access to police reform.

    “Instead of just a quartet, we now have a full choir,” Meeks said. “And we will be loud, clear, and consistent.”
    With Republicans maintaining control of both chambers of Congress, the CBC’s ability to influence legislation will likely depend on its capacity to build coalitions and galvanize public support. Wallace noted that the CBC’s growth, even in a Republican-controlled Congress, is a testament to Black voters and communities’ enduring belief in American ideals.

    “Black Americans have always believed in the promise of what America can be,” Wallace said. “Even when the odds are stacked against us, we continue to fight for a seat at the table.”

    As the CBC prepares for its largest-ever session, its leaders are already looking to the future. Meeks said the caucus is planning to spend the next two years opposing harmful policies and laying the groundwork for the 2026 midterm elections.

    “Two years go by fast,” he said. “We’ll be working every day to reverse the tragedies this administration will bring to our communities and the country as a whole.”
    Blunt Rochester added, “We’ve come a long way, but our work is far from over. Together, we will continue to fight for the future America deserves.”

  • Newswire: Congress passes historic Anti-Lynching legislation

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Lynching in a small Southern town


    Sixty-five years after the horrific lynching of teenager Emmett Till, the U.S. House of Representatives have finally passed H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act. The legislation would make lynching a crime under federal law.
    “Today, under the leadership of Representative Bobby Rush (IL-01), and three other Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the House of Representatives finally passed legislation to address the heinous act of lynching by making it a federal crime. The first bill to outlaw lynching was introduced in 1900,” members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote in a statement.
    “Lynching was a brutal, violent, and often savage public spectacle. They were advertised in newspapers, memorialized in postcards, and souvenirs were made from the victims’ remains,” the CBC, which is chaired by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif), added.
    A 1930 editorial in Raleigh News and Observer noted the delight of the audience witnessing a lynching as “Men joked loudly at the sight of the bleeding body; girls giggled as the flies fed on the blood that dripped from the Negro’s nose.”
    “Make no mistake: lynching is domestic terrorism. It is a tool that was used during the 256 years of slavery to terrorize enslaved African Americans and discourage them from rebelling,” Bass said.
    “It was used for almost 100 years after the end of slavery to terrorize free African Americans and discourage them from exercising their rights as citizens. Even today, we hear reports of nooses being left on college campuses and workplaces to threaten and harass Black people,” she stated.
    Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Tim Scott (R-SC) applauded the passage of the bill, which is identical to anti-lynching legislation the three introduced in the Senate last year.
    That legislation unanimously passed the Senate. “Today brings us one step closer to finally reconciling a dark chapter in our nation’s history,” Booker stated in a release. “Lynchings were used to terrorize, marginalize, and oppress black communities – to kill human beings to sow fear and keep black communities in a perpetual state of racial subjugation.”
    He continued:
    “If we do not reckon with this dark past, we cannot move forward. But today we are moving forward. Thanks to the leadership of Rep. Rush, the House has sent a clear, indisputable message that lynching will not be tolerated. It has brought us closer to reckoning with our nation’s history of racialized violence. Now the Senate must again pass this bill to ensure that it finally becomes law.”
    Harris called lynchings racially-motivated acts of violence and terror that represent a dark and despicable chapter of our nation’s history. “They were acts against people who should have received justice but did not. With this bill, we can change that by explicitly criminalizing lynching under federal law,” noted Harris, who suspended her presidential campaign late last year.
    “I applaud Congressman Rush and the House of Representatives for speaking the truth about our past and making it clear that these acts must never happen again without serious and swift consequence and accountability. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this bill’s passage,” she said.
    Scott added that it’s essential to show that hate will not win while Rush compared lynching to the French use of the guillotine, the Roman Empire’s use of crucifixion, and the British use of drawing and quartering as a tool of terrorism.
    “And, for too long now, a federal law against lynching has remained conspicuously silent,” Rush noted. “Today, we will send a strong message that violence – and race-based violence, in particular – has no place in American society. I am immensely grateful to Senators Harris, Booker, and Scott for working with my office on this landmark piece of legislation, and I look forward to it being quickly passed in the Senate and immediately sent to the President to be signed into law.”
    Bass said the last known lynching was as recent as 25 years ago and only then, for the first time in the nation’s history, was the perpetrator convicted and executed. “This is an awful part of our history, but it is our history – our American history – and it is important for us to all know and remember it, especially now that we are facing a resurgence of hate crimes in America under the presidency of Donald J. Trump,” Bass stated.
    “Now there is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to document the known history of lynching and the many reasons why Black people were lynched, such as for making eye contact with a white person, not moving to the other side of the street, or spitting in public,” she said.
    Further, Bass added that the bill makes “a long-overdue change to our laws by finally addressing the issue of lynching for the thousands of African Americans who suffered this heinous fate and the countless more we’ll never know.”