Word: caucus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Thursday afternoon brought still more embarrassing questions for the Caucus. "What is the Black Caucus doing to prevent the Social Security I.D. cards that are to be issued to all the three year olds in the country?" asked an irate member of the forum. Clay fielded the question, "Well, you see we're not trying to dodge the issue, but things will be done." One senses these things will be done only when the larger black community does them...
...panel on Communication, the Congressional Black Caucus got just what they wanted. In a position paper drafted previously, the Caucus had outlined a thirteen-point program for creating a more objective news media. When the session was over only one item--something regarding black book publishers--had been added by the people whose opinions the Caucus was supposedly soliciting. Now the Black Caucus can go to the Democratic Convention and say, "Well, at our conference we received unanimous support for our program...
Perhaps the Congressional Black Caucus should ask itself some embarrassing questions, like whose program is "our" program? Is it the program of the brother who's standing on a corner in Harlem, of the black man who's being pushed out of his home in Roxbury? Or is "our" program the program of sophisticated blacks in three-hundred-dollar knit suits from Saks, the program of the black bourgeoisie...
...panel on Housing. It might have been more aptly titled "Why We Love Black Capitalists." Most prominent among the panelists was Floyd McKissick, activist turned capitalist, formerly president of the Congress on Racial Equality and now president of McKissick Enterprises, Inc. When someone in the audience suggested that the Caucus should push for the development of non-profit companies to build housing for blacks, McKissick flew into a rage. Jumping out of his chair and waving his hands, he yelled, "There is nothing wrong with making money, with making a profit. We as black people have to put that notion...
McKissick having had his say, the chairman of the panel, Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.) entertained additional comments from the floor. A woman from Boston making reference to local landlord Maurice Gordon, called on the Black Caucus to introduce legislation that would make landlords responsible for all damage done by fire when the landlord had been warned of building code violations. Mitchell explained to the woman that it would be very difficult to pass a federal law concerning violations of local building codes. Instead he suggested that any black person, anywhere in the country, who had a particular grievance...