Members of Black Caucus on the Capitol Steps

Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Walter Fauntroy (D.C. Delegate) speaking on the steps of the Capitol: "...legislative weekend, with a song from our illustrative past that gives us determination to address the challenge of these difficult times, and implement a plan for moving this nation to the high grounds of principles that we enunciate, but so often fail to live. As we prepare now to go into day long sessions grappling with the basic problems confronting our nation in seventeen workshops to open our legislative weekend, we thought it most appropriate that we begin by exercising our first amendment rights to peacefully assemble, on the very steps of the Capitol of these U.S. to petition this government for redress of grievances. We've come at a time when our President has announced the first of $13 billion additional cuts; a part of $100 billion in cuts in programs that are vital to the role of government to care, protect, and defend the poor of our nation and our world. And, it's most appropriate that we've assembled here at a time when he has again challenged anyone who disagrees with the assumptions of his economic policies to a dialogue. We have come to begin that dialogue, Mr. President. We say that our nation's problems cannot be solved by military means for they do not lend themselves to military solutions. Our nation's and our world's problems are social, economic, and political in nature, we are here to fashion a constructive alternative to your policies that provide diplomatic and economic solutions that meet those social, economic, and political needs of our nation and our world. As we gather, there are current issues of great concern, not only to black Americans, but to all Americans. There are those global concerns that reflect themselves in the unconscionable tilt of our nation toward South Africa, and our marching feet speak this morning to that issue." Rep. William H. Gray III (D-PA) and Rep. Harold Washington (D-IL) stand behind him.