Building A Beloved Community

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FOUSHEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for organizing this Special Order hour and for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in reflecting on the life, legacy, and enduring moral leadership of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose vision of justice and equality continues to shape our Nation's conscience.

Dr. King's work reminds us that progress in this country has never been inevitable and that the rights and freedoms that we cherish have always required vigilance, courage, and sustained commitment. Today, that lesson is as urgent as ever. Across our country, communities are feeling the weight of an administration that governs through extremism, division, punishment, and exclusion.

We see it in attacks on our voting rights, in efforts to criminalize protests, in targeting immigrants and asylum seekers, in the rollback of civil rights protections, and in policies that deepen economic inequality while shielding the powerful from accountability.

Dr. King did not believe justice was self-executed. He understood that progress is never handed down. It is demanded. He warned us, as you heard from our chairwoman, that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Silence, Mr. Speaker, is exactly what this moment does not allow.

Progress is never achieved without persistence, and justice is never advanced without those willing to confront complacency and demand accountability.

The Congressional Black Caucus will not be silent while families are pushed deeper into poverty, while communities of color are targeted by discriminatory policies, and while the promise of our democracy is narrowed to serve the few instead of the many.

We refuse to accept the vision of America where cruelty is policy and inequality is the goal. Instead, we stand in the tradition of Dr. King, committed to dignity, equity, and justice for all. We will continue to speak out, to act, and to fight until the promise of this Nation is fully realized.

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