Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) paid tribute to the civil rights legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and spoke about President Bush’s final State of the Union Address in the ICC auditorium tonight.

Following an introduction by visibly nervous Hoya guard Jessie Sapp, Rangel praised the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement. He cited the diversity of the Democratic presidential front runners and the growth of the Congressional Black Caucus as evidence of America’s progress towards equality.

Rangel wasn’t as pleased with Bush’s policies, calling them antithetical to King’s vision. Drawing parallels to King’s opposition to the Vietnam War, Rangel attacked the Iraq War and the conduct of the administration as regressive and detrimental to American ideals and interests.

Rangel also addressed the current stimulus package. He claimed that the bill was a poor fix for the supply-side economic policy of the past several years. To conclude his speech, Rangel exhorted the audience to continue on the path of the Civil Rights generation and work for change, concluding that “where the country goes remains in your hands.”

Rangel took a few brief questions, including one from a man advocating a 20% value-added tax (Rangel dismissed the man, asking for a serious question) and one from an intern from his Ways and Means office (Rangel told the audience to direct all remaining questions to the intern), before hurrying out of the auditorium to attend the State of the Union address across town.

—John Cooke

Photo by Vivian Chen, Contributing Editor 

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Campus News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.