Sheila Jackson Lee quotes
We view the path of the present administration as corroding the international standards the United States had as a negotiator, a mediator and a compromiser for good. Frankly, we lost our way. We did not allow the UN inspectors to proceed in completing their work and did not allow a vigorous international debate before the decision was made to go into Iraq. There were those of us who voted ‘No' even based upon the overwhelming evidence that this administration tried to present. We have come to the understanding that much of what the members of Congress heard was misrepresenting and misleading. So, that counters what we have been known for in the United States and that is our diplomacy, our willingness to listen, our ability to negotiate.
Sheila Jackson Lee
Reparations are ultimately about respect and reconciliation - and the hope that one day, all Americans can walk together toward a more just future. We owe it to those who were ripped from their homes those many years ago an ocean away; we owe it to the millions of Americans- yes they were Americans – who were born into bondage, knew a life of servitude, and died anonymous deaths, as prisoners of this system. We owe it to the millions of descendants of these slaves, for they are the heirs to a society of inequities and indignities that naturally filled the vacuum after slavery was formally abolished 154 years ago. Today represents the first time in history that the House of Representatives will host a hearing on H. R. 40.
Sheila Jackson Lee
The mythology built around the Civil War-that victory by the North eradicated slavery and all of its vestiges throughout our nation-has obscured our discussions of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American history and public policy. While it is nearly impossible to determine how the lives touched by slavery could have flourished in the absence of bondage, we have certain datum that permits us to examine how a subset of Americans – African Americans – have been affected by the callousness of involuntary servitude. We know that in almost every segment of society – education, healthcare, jobs and wealth – the inequities that persist in America are more acutely and disproportionately felt in Black America.
Sheila Jackson Lee
Four hundred years ago, ships set sail from the west coast of Africa and in the process, began one of mankind's most inhumane practices: human bondage and slavery. For two centuries, human beings – full of hopes and fears, dreams and concerns, ambition and anguish – were transported onto ships like chattel, and the lives of many forever changed. The reverberations from this horrific series of acts – a transatlantic slave trade that touched the shores of a colony that came to be known as America, and later a democratic republic known as the United States of America – are unknown and worthy of exploration. Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865.
Sheila Jackson Lee