Congressional Progressive Caucus: Confederate Flag

Floor Speech

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Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey for yielding, and I stand with her and what she has just said.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes, we forget how privileged we are, the Members of Congress, who have a chance to stand in this hallowed Chamber. We are the representatives of the people. We get elected to speak for the American people. We get elected to act on behalf of the American people.

Very few Americans, throughout the history of our country, have had an opportunity to stand right here where we are today and say that we actually can get things done, not just for the American people, for the people of the world, because there has never been a democracy like the United States of America.

There has never been a country that has had an opportunity to do so much for so many, and there has never been a democracy that has a chance to prove to the world that we know how to get this done and do it right.

Mr. Speaker, as we stand here in this Chamber, we have to admit, we have to be prepared on behalf of the American people to stand up, to step up, to do what is right, and to do what the American people expect us to do.

Now, they know we have to speak for them, but they don't want us just to talk. The time to just talk on so many issues has come and gone.

Mr. Speaker, I think the American public would agree that the time to just talk about what to do about the Confederate battle flag has come and gone. The time to just talk about what to do about the Confederate battle flag came 150 years ago when the chance to heal was upon us.

As President Lincoln said in his second inaugural address: ``With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.''

If we needed to talk, Abraham Lincoln said it all. Lincoln wanted us to act, to move, to get things done for the American people.

The time to talk came after one after another Black church was suspiciously burned down throughout this country, and we knew something was going on. That was the time to talk about what we needed to do.

The time to talk was before a man, driven by hate and animosity, on June 17, entered Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to carry out a vicious plan to start a race war--because we have seen these signs of danger growing for the disregard for life.

That would have been a time to talk and heal, before that man, crazed with hate, walked into Mother Emanuel Church; but, Mr. Speaker, after nine innocent, God-loving, God-fearing Americans were taken from their families, from their church where they were praying, from their country, the time to just talk is over.

It is time for us to step up. It is time for us to stand up because that is why we get elected, to do what the people expect us, on their behalf, to do.

320 million Americans cannot get up and say, It is time to remove the Confederate battle flag from any grounds where we reflect the governance of a democracy. They encharge us to do that, and the time to talk has ended.

When we see on the floor of the House, last night, an opportunity for the Congress to register itself and say, We hear you, America, you want us to act, and you want us to take down that Confederate battle flag in whatever symbolic way we can, including selling that symbol here in the Capitol, we had an opportunity.

In fact, we had an opportunity that was golden because it seemed like we had a bipartisan vote to do exactly that; but, in the dead of night, something happened. Some people decided to hide behind the dark cloud and change what we had just done.

When we take to the floor here, we may only be talking, but as my colleague from New Jersey said, we are going to do much more because the time to talk has just ended. It is time to act. It is time to step up.

We all have an opportunity. We all have an obligation to stand up.

Tomorrow morning, at 10, the Confederate battle flag will finally come down from above the South Carolina Capitol once and for all. Mr. Speaker, the Confederate battle flag has no place but a museum in the 21st century.

Let us all together, those of us privileged to be in this Chamber, along with our fellow Americans, forge a path forward as a Nation that celebrates our bright future, not our dark past. It is time to take the Confederate battle flag down. It is time for us to step up.

It is not a time to hide behind procedural motions, behind votes in the dead of night, and it certainly is not time for us to assemble a bipartisan group of Members to talk about what we need to do about the Confederate battle flag.

It is time to do the work of the people, and they want us to act. There should be no doubt about it. The American people are speaking very forcefully. Don't just talk; act.

Mr. Speaker, I say with great pride, having served in this Chamber for many years, I believe the people's Representatives in the people's House are getting ready to act; and no act during the dead of night, no effort to derail this effort will succeed because the people have spoken and spoken in the words of the nine people who are no longer with us.

We do it with grace, but we will do it with power because we understand this is not a time to just talk; it is a time to act--and we will act.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

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