Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Proudly Representing Maryland's 7th District

We Are an Abiding Movement,
Not a Campaign for this Moment Alone

February 23, 2006

Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government
Sixth Annual Public Policy and Leadership Conference

Thank you, Professor [Nolan] Bowie, for your kind words of introduction.
And good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking time from your busy lives to be part of this forum.

The Kennedy School [of Government] is one of our most important training grounds for careers in public policy.

That is why you can attract excellent teachers like Professor Nolan Bowie, who came to Harvard after three decades of distinguished public service.

Thanks to the leadership of far-sighted educators like Dean [David] Elwood, Harvard is slowly becoming more diverse, reflecting more and more of the talents and aspirations of all Americans.

And, as a result, more Americans of color are receiving the opportunity to study here at Harvard University.

This commitment by Harvard is important - just as you are important, my young friends.
I need not remind you that our world is undergoing an accelerating rate of technological, economic and social change.

Our lives are undergoing a transformation unlike anything that human beings have experienced since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century.

We cannot entirely foresee what the future will bring, but some of the more important implications are clear.

As my friend, former President Bill Clinton, often reminds us, we must engage the rest of the world in a new relationship of shared benefits and shared responsibilities.

And I am convinced that President Clinton's insight applies with equal validity to our domestic policies and relationships as well.

If we are to remain the leading nation in the world, we must retain the economic and the social vision that will retain the loyalty and motivate the ingenuity of all Americans.
We must fortify the democratic values that are so essential to the respect that we need from the rest of the world.

On these points, most policy-makers agree. And, although we may disagree politically as to the specifics of what we must change and what we must retain, leaders of both major political parties understand that it will be you, rather than we, who will write the next chapter in America's story.

One of our most important duties is to prepare you to defend what is best about America - even while you oversee those aspects of our society that must submit to the requirements of change.

That is why I stand before this forum with a clear understanding that America must make full use of all of our people - and, especially, of our most talented young people - if we are to prevail in this increasingly difficult world.

These are the overriding imperatives of our time:

America must change - we must become both more productive and more fair to our people - while we also fortify, defend and expand the democratic values that have made this nation great.
***

I. WE ARE AN ABIDING MOVEMENT, NOT A CAMPAIGN FOR THIS MOMENT ALONE

Now, as most of you, no doubt, are aware, February has come to be "Black History Month."

I will briefly touch upon some of that history during these remarks; but please remember that my reason for traveling to Harvard has far more to do with the future than it does with the past.

In this vein, I note that our organizers have entitled this forum: "Pursing the Dream: Black Empowerment Post Civil Rights."

It is true, of course, that we have been noting the anniversaries of some of the most significant advances in civil rights during the last century: the Brown decision, as well as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

And, with the recent funeral of Coretta Scott King, I can understand how some might find it significant that some of the most important leaders of that progressive era have now passed into history.

Nevertheless, I must respectfully submit to you that it is not entirely accurate to speak of the civil rights movement in the past tense. From my perspective, at least, the civil rights era of our time has just begun.

I believe, you see, in a continuing American movement toward expanded civil rights that is squarely oriented toward the present and future - not the past.

I believe in a civil rights movement that will address the critical issues that were left unresolved during the 1960s.

What are those unresolved civil rights issues?

Well, we are a democratic republic, and the assurance that every vote will be counted is essential to the continuing legitimacy of our government.

That right of every American to have a voice in establishing governmental policy must also have relevance in the daily lives of our people.

As my dear, departed friend, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, was always quick to remind us:
‘Americans yearn for a politics of the center - a politics that speaks to the critical issues that are at the center of their daily lives.’

Ladies and gentlemen - you know what those "centrist" issues are. After all, you are in the process of becoming experts in public policy. Respecting that, I will offer my own short list.

In my view, the central challenges of our time include:
∙ Creating universally affordable education of the highest quality - doors to opportunity that will extend through college to graduate study;

∙ Establishing universal and affordable health care for every American;

∙ Transforming our national economy into an engine in which success is measured by the creation of good jobs that pay a living wage and offer a decent retirement for all Americans who are willing and able to work;

∙ Assuring that our privacy and other civil liberties as citizens will not be violated by the government in which we place our trust;

∙ Developing public policies that reflect the reality that issues of environmental justice affect us all; and

∙ Restoring America to a position of moral - as well as military and economic - leadership in the world.

These challenges, my friends, are at the core of the civil rights movement of our time - the present and future tense popular movement to which I am devoting my adult life.
****

In my mind, this civil rights movement of the 21st Century has as its enduring symbol that flag that still flies on Baltimore's Ft. McHenry near my childhood home.

These are the goals to which I rededicate myself every time that I see that American flag that is supposed to stand for "liberty and justice for all."

We are now going through a difficult and dangerous time - a time in which many Americans would have us retreat into the past.

We must understand our past, for that history is the foundation upon which we must build.

However, as I mentioned, the winds of change are gripping the sails of our world.
We must move forward. We cannot go back.

These are difficult times.

But I refuse to believe that the dream of America will be denied to you - or to the generations of Americans yet to be born.

I am a father, and I have dedicated my adult life to giving America's children the opportunities that I received when I was young.

And I mean "all" of our children, my friends.

The civil rights movement of this century - our century - is a continuing struggle for inclusion, social justice and respect for all Americans, whatever may be the color of their skin.

And it is for this civil rights movement that I have come here to Harvard.
I have come here to ask you to lead.

These challenges that I have noted to you this evening are not remnants of our past.
Our success in meeting these challenges will define our future.

For some, the politics of elective office may be no more than a succession of campaigns.
But for me - and for all of the other Americans who think like me - they are something far more enduring.

We are an abiding movement, not a campaign for this moment alone.

****
II. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICA

The vision of our evolving civil rights movement is an ambitious one - nothing less than the reconstruction of America.

I decided that it would be appropriate to examine this vision in the context of your conference with the clear understanding of one essential fact:

Americans of color will not be fully empowered in this country - neither politically, economically nor socially - unless and until all Americans are empowered, whatever may be the color of their skin.

This is not to say that I have forsaken my support for affirmative action, anti-discrimination laws or the other partial mechanisms that we have developed in this society as a response to the slavery and Jim Crow. Far from it.

These mechanisms are as important as they ever have been.

Nevertheless, we must face some harsh facts. And the first of those harsh facts is this.
After four decades of civil rights initiatives, America remains in a state of de facto segregation.

That is why the civil rights movement of our time must speak truth to power.

That is why we must appeal to the conscience and self-interest of this great nation when we declare that:
∙ We have not ended segregation when minority school children are less likely to receive an empowering education because America has not adequately funded all of our public schools.

∙ We have not eliminated segregation when Americans of color are "redlined" out of our dream of home ownership, "racially-profiled" out of our right to justice and denied equal opportunity in the workplace and business world.

∙ We have not eliminated segregation in America when men and women of color are more likely to die because of a discriminatory health care system.

∙ We have not eliminated segregation in America when this nation fails to provide the financial support that would allow all of our children to complete college.

∙ And we will not end de facto segregation in America by nominating and confirming federal judges who believe ( incredibly) that the Civil War Amendments to our Constitution prohibit voluntary action to more fully include minority Americans in the most empowering opportunities of our national life.

All of this is the truth, my friends. If we are to meet the challenges of a changing world, we must be willing to openly discuss the implications of these truths about ourselves - and must be willing to undertake corrective action.

The First Wave of "Reconstruction"

We must do this because, nearly a century and a half after the Civil War, the reconstruction of America is far from complete.

Consider our history for just a few moments.

In the 19th Century, Americans fought and died for the proposition that the freedom and economic opportunity of one person cannot be based on the subjugation of another.

Slavery was this nation's original sin - it was a fundamental wrong that Americans of conscience of every race and creed struggle still to expiate.

The original strategy of reconstruction was valid - but, after a time, the country lost the political will to follow this strategy to its logical conclusion.

The Second Wave of "Reconstruction"

This nation regressed into segregation and Jim Crow - and, for generations, the high ideals of 19th Century Reconstruction went unfulfilled.

Then, Thurgood Marshall and others completed the legal strategy for a second wave of reconstruction.

When the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education that racially-separate education is inherently unequal and unconstitutional, that ruling provided an essential foundation for America's second - 20th Century - reconstruction movement.
We know that second wave of reconstruction as the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

As we confront the challenges that we face today, we must never forget that the Brown victory did not happen overnight.

To formulate the 20th Century's "reconstruction" of America, Thurgood Marshall and many other committed leaders struggled for decades - beginning in the 1930s.

In 1935, Thurgood Marshall, William Gosnell & NAACP Legal Director Charles Hamilton Houston challenged the University of Maryland's exclusion of Black students in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

In Murray v. Pearson, they successfully argued that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment must be satisfied within Maryland - not by sending law students out of state.

A 1990 Washington Post article by Juan Williams memorialized how my teacher and friend, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, assessed the impact of Marshall's 1935 legal victory:

"The colored people of Baltimore were on fire when Thurgood did that.... They were euphoric with victory.... We didn't know about the Constitution. He brought us the Constitution as a document like Moses brought his people the Ten Commandments."

And - after I graduated from Howard in the early 1970s - I was able to attend the University of Maryland School of Law because of what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP had accomplished.

Today, friends, as the result of that second, 20th Century wave of "reconstruction," I have a far greater opportunity to serve this diverse nation. And many other Americans who look like me have the opportunity to learn and grow at Harvard University.

Today, because of what Marshall and his contemporaries accomplished, we have the largest African American middle class in our history.
****

III. FORGING AN AMERICAN AGENDA

But, ladies and gentlemen, we are also painfully aware that all is not right in the America of our time.

The overriding vision of the civil rights movement of this century, my friends, is nothing less than the third wave of American reconstruction.

It is time for a renewed - and multiracial - movement that will empower not only the children of African Americans but the children of ALL Americans.

As I mentioned to you a few moments ago, our agenda must be one that speaks to the issues central to the lives of all Americans - freedom, opportunity, fairness, security and health.

I offered you the thesis that this nation remains in a state of de facto segregation.
But if I am to speak truth to power this evening, I must do all that I can to speak the whole truth. And the whole truth includes this important reality.

Far too many Americans of all racial backgrounds are subject to the most crippling segregation of all.

Theirs is the segregation from opportunity that is the inevitable result of poverty.
Their human rights are being denied.

Consider this. As a society, we Americans believe that a hungry child has a human right to be fed. And we believe that every human being has a right to medical care in times of injury or disease.

These moral values are part of our understanding of what it should mean to be human in our society.

Yet, we must also remember what Eleanor Roosevelt once observed:

"Human rights must begin in small places close to home," she declared.

"They are the world of the individual person, where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity and equal dignity without discrimination."

"Unless these rights have meaning there," Mrs. Roosevelt concluded, "they have little meaning anywhere."

Most Americans - and I think that most of us here this evening - would agree with Eleanor Roosevelt's insight.

Yet, as the people of this nation, Caucasians as well as Americans of color, are beginning to realize, unless these human rights are protected and advanced by law - they are not "rights" at all.

The third "reconstruction" of America - the movement to enact a truly American Agenda - must be directed toward creating a society that synchronizes its conduct with its conscience.

The "human rights" of the American people must be transformed into "civil rights" guaranteed by law.

This, my friends, is the hard lesson that Americans of color have learned from the first two waves of American reconstruction.

And that is the hard lesson that many other Americans are learning today.

As I work to speak truth to power, my friends, I must remind you that there are other harsh facts of life in America today:
∙ Most poor children in America are not Black.
∙ Most sick children in America are not Black.
∙ Most Americans who cannot afford health insurance are not Black.
∙ And most of the children who are being denied an empowering education in America today are not Black.

These American children are OUR children, ladies and gentlemen, whatever may be the color of their skin.

We must never allow the virus of racial division, social indifference and fear to infect our vision of what it means to be human beings.

This society has taught Americans of color more about injustice than any people ever deserved to learn.

Now it is our time, our duty and our opportunity to teach and lead all Americans toward a society that is both just and free.

IV. ELECTION 2004 & THE FUTURE

This foundation leads me to the present - to an assessment of the elections in 2004 which were both a setback and a gain for the civil rights movement of our time.

Despite a hard-fought and historic effort, we fell short in our campaign to elect a President who would restore a measure of fairness and balance to the government of the United States.

The consequences of this defeat cannot be minimized - nor should they be.

As we now know, the next few years will be more difficult for tens of millions of Americans, including many people in my own community.

For those of us who are Americans of color, we must do what we always have done.
We must reach out to those in need, offering whatever help we can provide.

We must encourage each other - and our neighbors - to hold onto the faith that better times and a better country are never beyond our reach.

We lost an important battle, a loss that will cost us dearly.

I am convinced, however, that the day will come when we will be stronger for this defeat.
Consider all that we accomplished during the national elections of 2004.

We kept our commitment to register and vote in record numbers.

Our volunteer effort registered 43,000 new voters in Baltimore City alone.

The more than 13 million African American voters who cast our ballots on Election Day represented a 25 percent increase.

And our percentage of the overall vote also increased (to more than 11 percent).

No other group of Americans matched the 89 percent Black vote for John Kerry and progressive change.

Now, I should also note that a number of commentators have made much of the fact that the African American vote for President Bush increased to 11 percent nationwide.

I believe, however, that the more lasting political realities cut the other way.

It is no surprise to us that African Americans continue to balance our support for progressive economic, foreign and military policies with a significant appreciation for more traditional social customs and religious beliefs.

Likewise, it should be no surprise to anyone else that we remain the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency.

I am especially heartened by the knowledge that more than 21 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in 2004 (8 million of them for the first time).

And I am encouraged by the fact that these younger voters supported Senator Kerry over President Bush by a margin of 54-45 percent.

Finally, although progressives lost strength in the Congress overall as a result of the 2004 elections, this was not the result within the Congressional Black Caucus that I was honored to lead during the two prior years.

In the current 109th Congress, our numbers have increased from 39 to 43. This gain has been significant not only in the quantity but also the quality of representation that we are now able to provide to our communities.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, only the third Black Senator to be elected to the Congress since Reconstruction, has restored our presence in the Senate.

Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia has been returned to her seat, joining a strong and principled class of 2005 that includes Representatives Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Al Green of Texas, and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, the first African American to be elected to the Congress from her state.

It is true that we lost a campaign at a critical moment in our history.

This is a bitter reality that we must face and overcome.

Yet, as Americans of color, the elections of 2004 also evoked an emotion that has even greater power - a sense of ourselves that is the very foundation of our character as a people.

We do well to recall that our struggle has never been a campaign for momentary power for power's sake alone.

Like those great Americans on whose shoulders we now stand, we have been called by God and history to participate in a great movement.

We are both the beneficiaries and the trustees of the most important calling in life - the mission to create a more fair and humane country and a safer, more peace-filled world.

This is the true, unalterable vision of our movement toward universal civil rights.

We are called to create an America that values every person.

We are determined to create an America that provides everyone with the tools of opportunity, assures that none of us die before our time and protects our families in an effective, balanced and honest way.

This is the vision that we now share with tens of millions of other Americans of every ethnicity.

Our deep, abiding and human need for freedom, respect and opportunity remains the primary source of our strength - as well as our most effective antidote to momentary despair.
****

THE FUTURE

Finally, before we have our discussion, allow me to say a few words about the future.
Today the Congressional Black Caucus represents 37 million Americans, of whom 38 percent are Black. 13 percent of our constituents are Latino Americans, and nearly one-half (49 percent) are white.

A Republican, Michael Steele, is now the Lt. Governor of Maryland, which - despite its hard-won status as a "blue state" continues to be south, not north, of the Mason-Dixon line.

My friend, Kweisi Mfume and Mr. Steele are among the top contenders to become Maryland's next United States Senator. And I am very pleased to be able to inform you that Anthony Brown, a war hero, lawyer and a Harvard man, may well be the next African American Lt. Governor of our state.

These facts - along with the statewide election of Senator Barack Obama in Illinois - demonstrate that African Americans can indeed win a statewide races in this country.
And that is all to the good.

But neither these leaders, nor my own political success, are what is most important. Remember my thesis:

The reconstruction of America - the evolution of this nation to meet the challenges of this century of both opportunity and danger - is essential.

African American leaders, along with women and minorities of every hue, have important contributions to make to this necessary change.

We seek to empower ALL Americans to transform this shrinking world or ours for the better. The changes that we are seeking to create are profound.

And it may seem that the current political obstacles that we face are overwhelming.
So, for those here tonight who share our dream, I will leave you with these words of empowerment.

****

CLOSING

I recall for you a lesson from our past. The election year 2004 that marked both our temporary defeat and our longer-term growth was also the fortieth anniversary of that evening when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood before the world in Oslo, Norway, and accepted the Noble Prize for Peace on behalf of all who struggle for civil rights.

Tragically, Dr. King's vision of non-violent social and political change was acknowledged just one day after children in Birmingham had been assaulted with fire hoses and snarling dogs.

He was honored by the world just after churches had been burned in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and civil rights workers had been killed.

Dr. King's words at that difficult time are worth remembering today. They remind us that we Americans are a strong people, a people of abiding faith.
And they encourage us to move forward toward the mission that we have been called to fulfill.

"When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights," Dr. King observed, "we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born."

****