“I think that it’s important for grassroots in particular to step up,” said Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y during the CBC’s 39th Annual Legislative Conference at the Washington Convention Center. “We have to develop as a community an inside-outside strategy. As leaders here in Washington, we have our president’s back. We’re a separate and distinct legislative body and we have to be very strategic. But what ignites everything is the grassroots. We know where the heart and sentiment of our communities are. We want to make sure that we’re strategic in unleashing that power. So I want folks to rise up, quite frankly and speak truth to power, and do the type of push back that’s required to equalize this situation so that we can do the work. I think that folks are watching. They’re also addressing their own personal issues right now. … As we speak and say certain words in our deliberations I know our people are going to come together and we’re going to make it happen. I’m very confident of that.”
Congressman James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., says people have to respond according to their own moral and political compass. “We all have to respond in our own capacities. As a member of Congress there is a way for me to do that. And that’s why I did what I did [vote to condemn] with Joe Wilson when he made his reprehensible remark,” Clyburn said in response to Wilson’s shout of “You lie!” during Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress. “I had the power to rebuke from the Congress and I did that. Ministers have to do what they do from their perspective. Lawyers have to do what they do from their perspective. We all have a role to play in this. There isn’t one response to that sort of thing. We all have to call on our experiences, our venues, in order to respond.”
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, on the other hand, says supporters unwisely rested after Obama’s election, thinking the game had been won. Plus, the constituents haven’t been taught what to do after acquiring power.
“The Republicans and the right wing know what to do. They are constant. They realize that they must be active when Bush was in, when their person was in, and they realize that they must be equally active when someone is in the White House that does not have their viewpoint. I happen to think that the president is president of all people. They happen to believe differently,” she says. “I tell them to use your e-mail. Use your Web site. Call your congresspersons. Be engaged to know that you are part of the president’s team if you are in agreement with his vision. Your work is not yet done.
Jackson Lee discerns a desire from community leaders to get involved more. “Even at home or even looking at TV, they sense that we have to be connected or engaged. So much so that my faith community wants to have a 1,000-person town hall meeting. They want to have a response,” she says. “What we have to do, is we have to get in the game. We just need to know that everything is OK, … the president cannot just pick up the phone and say ‘defend me.’ But you have a right to engage on his behalf. And you need to do so.” –terry shropshire
