In the last year, Black Americans made a number of “firsts” in our country. Georgia elected its first Black Senator, Raphael Warnock. Amanda Gorman, a Black poet and our nation’s first youth poet laureate, became the youngest poet ever to read at a presidential inauguration. Lloyd Austin became our first Black Pentagon Chief. And let’s not forget that our country elected our first Black Vice President, Kamala Harris.
And as we look across our nation’s history, there are so many people with incredible stories and remarkable contributions. From Crispus Attucks, the first American to fall in the fight for independence, to Abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, scientists like George Washington Carver and Mae Jamison, and my friend, colleague and hero John Lewis, black history is American history.
While we celebrate the achievements of Black Americans and honor Black heroes, we must also remember that we still have much work ahead of us to truly achieve the ideals of our founding. We commemorate this year’s Black History Month against the backdrop of persistent systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging communities of color, and many barriers still between the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in Congress and its signature on the President’s desk.
Please keep reading for more on the response to COVID in the district, work on the next COVID relief package, and details on legislation I introduced last week to repeal the SALT cap and protect seniors with preexisting conditions.