Showing posts with label U.S. Capitol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Capitol. Show all posts

Friday, March 02, 2018

Kamala Harris & Yvette Clarke Call For Statue of Shirley Chisholm In U.S. Capitol

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) are sponsoring legislation to put a statue of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, in the U.S. Capitol.

Multiple Democratic senators are already co-sponsoring the measure, including Cory Booker (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Tim Kaine (Va.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.). Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is also on board. The bill would direct the Joint Committee on the Library to enter into an agreement to obtain a statue within five years of the bill’s passage.

On the heels of Black History Month and at the beginning of Women’s History Month, Chisholm is perhaps the perfect candidate for the honor. Over her groundbreaking political career, she became the first black candidate for a major party’s presidential nomination and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s nomination. She served seven terms in the House from 1969 to 1983.

Now the question is whether a Republican-controlled Congress will honor this “unbought and unbossed” black woman.

[SOURCE: HUFFPOST]

Friday, April 07, 2017

Lawmakers and Advocates Rally to Support Mary Bethune Statue in Washington D.C.

FLORIDA-Several current and former state lawmakers, as well as members of the nation's oldest Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha gathered at the state capitol today, calling on the legislature to honor the late educator and civil-rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.

Bethune would replace a confederate general as one of Florida's representatives in a set of statues at the U.S. Capitol, under one proposal filed in the Senate.

The legislature voted last year to replace General Edmund Kirby Smith's statue amid a backlash against confederate symbols, following the 2015 shooting deaths of nine African-American worshippers.

State Senator Perry Thurston says the reasons to choose Bethune are many, adding it would be a good symbolic gesture.

Last June, Bethune, who founded what is now known as Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach appeared to be the favorite to replace Smith, getting the votes of all of the members of the "Great Floridians Committee".

[SOURCE:WTXL.COM]