Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney knows her roots but is skeptical about our future unless members of the African American community come together and realize that the fight for freedom, justice, and equality is not over. McKinney, a Democrat who represents Georgia’s 4th Congressional District, was the keynote speaker at the Central Area Motivation Program’s annual Juneteenth celebration last Saturday. Her message was simple, it’s going to be up to the warriors in the community to help eradicate the disparities that exists in America.

“Warriors don’t wear medals, they wear scarves,” exclaimed McKinney. “The people who supported me were the warriors of the community.” “The people show get up early in the morning, work all day, come home and then go to work for the community, and ask for nothing in return except for the community to be better for their children,” she continued. These are the people she represents the hardworking everyday American who not only needs a voice, and she makes no apologies for seeking the truth, asking the questions that no one else will ask, and taking stances that other politicians are not willing to take. McKinney alludes to the fact that when she first ran for Congress in 1992, everyone was trying to get their “Black” person in the office to advance their own political agenda. The only problem was the political agenda being put forward was not a political agenda that was advancing from the African American community. “The governor had his black candidate, the speaker of the house had his Black candidate, and I found out that there was a new district that was going to be created because I was on the re-apportionment committee,” she said. “I was offended that these White people would get together in a closed room and decide who the next black leader was going to be. So I decided to run myself and the people had the opportunity to speak.” “There is a difference between being freed and exercising freedom,” said McKinney. There is a difference between electing a representative and having representation.” She also noted that since the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on some indices the racial disparities have grown worse including unemployment, median family income, average household net worth, over 65 poverty rate, and even infant mortality. She cited statistics from various reports and sources, showing the disparities that exists and how long it will take to overcome them without public policy. She cited the fact that the median household income for a White family is $121,000, while that for a Black family is only $19,000, and that without public policy in place to address the issue it will take 98 years to close the wealth gap. It will take 150 years to close the poverty gap, 190 years to close the imprisonment gap, and 73 years for Black kids to have a college graduation rate equal to that of Whites without having to go to the military first. She even mentioned that the county where she resides in Georgia, Dekalb County, is one of the most affluent areas for African Americans in the country, yet they have a dropout rate of 40 percent and they are number one for mortgage foreclosure rates. “All of the statistics on every study that you look at will tell us that we have not yet overcome,” she said. “That the check that Dr. King said was returned for insufficient funds to the African American community has still not yet been cashed.” Yet, according to McKinney, people want us to believe that things are better, and because the African American middle class is growing there is no longer a need for people to push for civil rights. She stated that a study by the Kaiser Family and Harvard University concluded that on many of the indices of which these disparities are the most glaring that White Americans think that Black American are better off than they are. And she mentioned that although the U.S. Senate finally apologized last week for not enacting anti-lynching legislation that 20 members refused to sign the bill. “It is clear that public policy will not step in if a majority of the people of this country don’t believe that there is a need,” she stated. “Public policy can’t step in if people don’t know the facts,” she said. “Our young people are laughing at themselves on UPN and BET but not understanding the kind of America that they will inherit. But not only do our young people not know the kind of America that they will inherit, White America doesn’t understand it either. “Despite the fact that we have the voting rights act, and despite the fact that we’ve elected over 4,000 Black elected officials around this country, we are not leveraging from the political process that which the political process ought to deliver to us,” she continued. “Public policy won’t step in if Black America refuses to press its political claim in the political court,” she said. “My father was a tree shaker… and as a result of all the trees being shaken (by civil rights activists across the country) we got Brown vs. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Acts, and the Fair Housing Act.” “And when we stopped shaking the trees, what did we get?” she exclaimed. “We need a new political strategy. We need one that will deliver to us what we ought to have out of this system. We still have the political power to shape the political outcome, if we choose to do so,” she concluded.