NAACP Declares Serrano Cuba Bill “Legislative Priority for 109^th Congress”

Washington, DC, April 21, 2005—This week, the nation’s leading civil rights organization expressed its strong support for the Cuba Reconciliation Act, Congressman José E. Serrano’s (D-NY) proposal to lift the US embargo against Cuba.  In a letter to the Congressman, the Director of the NAACP’s (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Washington Bureau, Hilary Shelton, expressed the organization’s “strong support” for Serrano’s bill and thanked him for his “crucial leadership in this area.”  The letter went on to state that “the NAACP has made enactment of this bill a legislative priority for the 109^th Congress; we are committed to enlisting all of the resources available to the NAACP… to see that this legislation becomes law.”

“It is heartening to have the enthusiastic support of such a respected leader in the fight for Americans’ civil rights in this fight to bring some sense to our policy regarding Cuba,” said Congressman Serrano.  “A growing coalition of Americans from both sides of the partisan divide are coming together and daring to say what we have long known to be true: that the embargo against Cuba is useless, outdated, hurtful both to American businesses and farmers and to the Cuban people, and it needs to be repealed.”

Serrano’s bill “The Cuba Reconciliation Act” (HR 208) proposes to lift the trade embargo against Cuba, end the ban on Americans traveling to and from Cuba, and allows for mail communications between the United States and Cuba. 

The April 18^th NAACP letter states that “after more than 40 years, the current U.S. restrictions on trade and travel between the U.S. and Cuba have proven most effective in creating tremendous and on-going hardships for the people of Cuba, hurting American businesspeople and travelers and making the U.S. a scapegoat for all of the island nation’s problems…”  The letter goes on to mention that a majority of Americans, many well-respected newspapers, and a majority of both the US House and Senate now support lifting the embargo.

“The American people are sick and tired of this embargo, and it’s time that our leaders in Congress heed their call,” said Serrano.  “It is time to end this embargo.”

A copy of the letter is attached to this release.

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