Ms. Perry's Free Press Page 3


 Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), new chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, (front, striped
suit), is sworn in. She is joined by Immediate Past CBC Chair Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and most of the
remaining 39 CBC members.

CBC Anticipates Greater Power


 Continued from page 1
 the NAACP Civil Rights report
card. But it is often said that he
must now govern the nation as a
president not as a "Black presi-
dent."
 Agreeing, members of the CBC
interviewed by the NNPA News
Service at a reception following the
Jan. 6 swearing in, said as they push
legislation to improve the plight of
Blacks in America, they will be
emboldened by the support of the
president because of his princi-
ples, not because of his race.
 "It challenges the Congressional
Black Caucus because now more
than ever, America will recognize
that there are three branches of gov-
ernment, the executive, the judicial
and the legislative, the legislature
being the initiator of ideas," says
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas).
"It will be very good to compliment
the leadership of President Obama
to have ideas coming from the
Caucus ideas and solutions to
problems, working on the dream
that is still a work in progress."
 For too long have certain tenets
of American democracy, such as
"freedom and justice for all" been
recited, but not fully realized, says
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.). He
ticked off a list of issues that will
need immediate attention.
 "Health care, jobs,
education... getting serious about
reducing crime. We have a lot of
work to do and we look forward to
working with President Obama and
we will work enthusiastically to
solve these problems," says Scott.
 Black political observers will
also watch closely to see what will
happen with legislation on predato-
ry lending, police profiling and
misconduct, sentencing disparities,
affirmative action, and other areas
of public policy that have largely
remained stagnant.
 The CBC was founded in January
of 1969 when 13 African-American
representatives of the 77th
Congress formed the Democratic
Select Committee. The committee
was renamed the Congressional
Black Caucus in 1971. Founding


members of the CBC were Reps.
Shirley Chisholm (N.Y.), William
Clay (Mo.), George Collins (Il.),
John Conyers (Mich.), Ronald
Dellums (Calif.), Charles Diggs
(Mich.), Augustus Hawkins
(Calif.), Ralph Metcalfe (Il.),
Parren Mitchell (Md.), Robert Nix
(Pa.), Charles Rangel (N.Y.), Louis
Stokes (Ohio), and Delegate Walter
Fauntroy (D.C.).
 Forty years later, two of the CBC
founding members are chairing two
of the most powerful committees in
Congress. Rep. John Conyers,
known as the "dean" of the CBC,
chairs the House Judiciary
Committee and Rep. Charlie
Rangel chairs the House Ways and
Means Committee. Two other CBC
members chair House committees.
They are Rep. Bennie Thompson
(D-Miss.) of the Homeland
Security Committee and Edolphus
Towns, who chairs the House
Oversight Committee. In addition,
there are 15 subcommittee chairs
who are CBC members.
 U. S. Rep. Jim Clybum (D-S.C.),
the House majority whip, is cur-
rently the highest ranking African-
American in Congress.
 The growing power of the CBC is
clearly bolstered by Democratic
majorities in both houses.
 "This will be an outstanding year
in the history of our great nation,"
Clybum told the audience at the
swearing in. He introduced House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "strong,
steely petite woman".
 Pelosi told the Caucus, "Here we
are in this incredible, incredible
time. With all the good work, all of
the inspiration, all of the volition,
leading the challenge with much
work undone, laying the foundation
for two weeks, Barack Obama for
president of the United States."
 The audience burst into applause.
 "This is a great opportunity and I
think we'll take advantage of it,"
said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) at the
reception.
 Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.),
newly elected CBC secretary, was
emphatic: "The CBC has the
tremendous responsibility to


expose and confront the disparities
that hurt our community,"
Butterfield said in a statement.
"With a solid Democratic majority
and a powerful ally occupying The
White House, the African-
American community can expect us
to be relentless in our effort to
empower our community."


Black Middle Class in Crisis


Part I
by Zenitha Price, AA
The current economic crisis has
waged a particularly severe attack
on the Black middle-class in the
United States, experts say.
 For African Americans, "2008 was
not a good year," said Algernon
Austin, director of Program on
Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at
the Economic Policy Institute, "and
unfortunately, it looks like things
will get worse."
 The adage that when America
sneezes, Black America catches a
cold has held true, making it almost
inevitable that African Americans
would bear the brunt of the coun-
try's financial woes.
 "Whenever there is an economic
downturn, African Americans are
the most negatively affected," said
Jon Schmitt, senior economist at the
Center for Economic Policy
Research.
 The disparity can be explained by
a persistent gap in wealth between
Blacks and Whites among other
things, he added.
 The unique challenge for African-
American middle class is they tend
to have much less financial wealth
(like stocks and bonds) and wealth
in general so they have much less of
a margin to get through tough times.
 It was just a decade ago that jour-
nalist Ellis Cose declared that "it's
the best time ever to be black in
America." A tight labor market saw


marked increases in employment,
higher wages and homeownership
and declines in joblessness and
poverty that promised a robust
growth of the wealth base.
 However, Austin said, unlike other
Americans, Blacks generally have
not recovered what they lost during
the 2001 recession, making them
even more susceptible to the down-
swing in the economic cycle, which
started late last year.
What makes this recession particu-
larly painful, Schmitt said, is its ori-
gin in the housing market collapse.
Homes comprise 80-90 percent of
net worth of the average American,
he added.
 "The problem with housing is you
have two-thirds of Americans who
are homeowners so when housing
prices fall 15-25 percent it has a big-
ger impact on the wealth of a typical
person," the economist said. "So
this is a particularly hard recession
because [people's] wealth was
directly attacked."
 For years advocates like the
National Urban League had warned
that the conflagration of subprime
mortgages-products meant for
limited use by a limited number of
people, which were unfairly peddled
in large numbers to Black and
Latino communities-would lead to
increased foreclosures.
 But no one listened as the markets
 rode high on the growing housing
 bubble that enriched many.


Hungry to capitalize on the hous-
ing boom, financial services piled
on features on these loans such as
exploding adjustable rates, balloon
payments and penalties for early re-
payment then packaged them into
securities and sold them at high
profits on the stock exchange.
 Unsurprisingly, however, the bub-
ble burst, people began to default on
loans and foreclosures exploded,
sending a cataclysmic shock into
Wall Street that brought the econo-
my-to its knees.
 On Black Main Street, however,
the devastation was far worse.
 From subprime loans,
Black/African American borrowers
will lose between $71 billion and
$92 billion, and the ripple effect will
exact an even higher toll.
 "The spillover effect of the sub-
prime crisis affects whole communi-
ties negatively, in terms of aban-
doned houses, increased crime,
devaluation of neighboring houses,
and erosion of the tax base, causing
revenue shortfalls that mandate
service cuts," the report read.
 At the base of the foreclosure cri-
 sis, both analysts agree, is a wage
 crisis, which forces African
 Americans to live paycheck to pay-
 check and deplete their savings and
 which led them to take additional
 mortgages on their homes in an
 attempt to bridge the gap between
 their earnings and cost of living.
 PART II NEXT WEEK


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