Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and a dozen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus slammed federal housing chief Ben Carson over a recent decision to clamp down on critical hurricane recovery money destined for the U.S. Virgin Islands. “Your decision may unfairly delay desperately needed funding for the Virgin Islands and contravene the intent of Congress to ensure long-delayed mitigation funding is finally disbursed to dis...
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On July 23, the Congressional Black Caucus launched a new taskforce that will focus on the upcoming 2020 Census and the legacy of undercounting the African American community. The taskforce will be led by Congressman Steven Horsford (D-NV). According to a release, members of the CBC will meet with stakeholders and leading professionals to discuss the current state of play. The Caucus will also discuss the tools required for effective outreach to hard to count communities across the United States...
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The Congressional Black Caucus will launch a new taskforce that will focus on the upcoming 2020 Census and the legacy of under counting the African American community. Members of the CBC will meet with stakeholders and leading professionals to discuss the current state of play. The Caucus will also discuss the tools required for effective outreach to hard to count communities across the United States. The taskforce will be led by Congressman Steven Horsford (D-NV). Below, Chairwoman Bass and mem...
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Today, the Congressional Black Caucus will launch a new taskforce that will focus on the upcoming 2020 Census and the legacy of under counting the African American community. Members of the CBC will meet with stakeholders and leading professionals to discuss the current state of play. The Caucus will also discuss the tools required for effective outreach to hard to count communities across the United States. The taskforce will be led by Congressman Steven Horsford (D-NV). Below, Chairwoman Bass ...
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Today, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R.582, the Raise the Wage Act of 2019. This legislation is sponsored by fellow CBC member and Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Congressman Bobby Scott. This legislation comes after more than a decade with no increase to the federal minimum wage -- the longest period in the United States history. If passed, the legislation would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 and will give millions of African Americans a rais...
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It’s not about the Confederate statues or the re-emerging debate over reparations for slavery. The struggle for black equality, 400 years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, isn’t just about disparity in wealth, education and treatment by the criminal justice system, although those are top priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus in a U.S. House of Representatives that Democrats control for the first time in almost a decade. The solutions come down to elections and the po...
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What was billed as a town hall for the “State of Black America in Brooklyn” Friday night at Brownsville’s P.S. 156 Waverly, morphed into a panel discussion about criminal justice reform featuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus, local legislators and community activists, including Assemblymember Latrice Walker and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. Led by Congressmembers Yvette D. Clarke and Stacey Plaskett, lawmakers discussed initiatives they’d put forth to make jail a last re...
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Inside the U.S. Capitol, in a historic room where Abraham Lincoln forged friendships with colleagues from both parties, members of the Congressional Black Caucus huddled Wednesday with an unlikely coalition that included an L.A. city councilman, an Atlanta rapper, a New York radio host and a South Los Angeles developer. The discussion veered from public policy to the personal as they talked about the economic state of black America and ways that they could work together to uplift their people a...
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There is no barn at Sedrick Rowe’s farm on the outskirts of Albany, only a modest storage shed. Vintage equipment lies idle nearby. Rust, about the color of the soil where Rowe plants his organic peanuts and watermelon seeds, covers each piece of machinery. Weeds, green and persistent, grow up through the blades. The dated equipment isn’t decorative. It tills the soil and gets his seeds in the ground. He paid about $1,000 for the implements, sure he could make them work based on what he learned...
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Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) is finding herself in high demand heading into 2020. The new leader of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus received a phone call from Joe Biden, the former vice president and current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, just the other day. She caught up with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), another White House hopeful, during a plane ride from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. And Bass regularly chats up Sen. Kamala Harris, a fellow Californ...
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