“INSIGHT America is an organization that will empower communities of color with the principles of free enterprise, solutions that work and opportunities for all .  As our nation becomes more diverse, we must open up a dialogue about policy solutions to problems within today's minority communities and tomorrow's America."  -  The Honorable J.C. Watts, Jr.  Chairman

 The Historic Capitol Hill Debate 

Former Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr. (R-OK) was joined by Former Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) on Capitol Hill for a Black History Month Forum. The event hosted by Insight America was a salute to the Black Republican Congressional Staff Association and the Congressional Black Associates for their willingness to offer common ground solutions for communities of color.

Watts and Lincoln gave closing statements that commended the congressional staffers for their participation. Both Watts and Lincoln made observations about the need to find issues where both sides of the aisle can agree. They both encouraged the staffers to then work on those points of agreement to move policy forward for the American public, more specifically communities of color.

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 Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele was joined by Hilary Shelton, NAACP Senior Vice President of Advocacy to moderate this historic event.  The 20th Century Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois discussion was advanced by six congressional staffers who debated each other with strong diverse political ideologies.  Staffers were given the opportunity to debate, to find common ground solutions and discuss 21st century policies for the issues of Socio-Economic Mobility and Inequality before an audience of congressional staffers, business and community leaders.

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.DuBois

Celebrating Black History Month

Frederick Douglass 

• In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. And so Douglass is the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.

• The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the US Capitol in Washington DC, was built in 1950 and named in his honor.

• In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, DC) became part of the National Park System, and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

• In 1965, the U.S. Postal Service honored Douglass with a stamp in the Prominent Americans series.

• In 1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

• In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Frederick Douglass to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

• In 2003, Douglass Place, the rental housing units that Douglass built in Baltimore in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• Douglass is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 20.

• In 2007, the former Troup–Howell bridge which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River was redesigned and renamed theFrederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge.

• In 2010, a statue (by Gabriel Koren) and memorial (designed by Algernon Miller) of Douglass[63] were unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.

• On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, honored Douglass by installing a seven-foot bronze statue of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Maryland.

• The Frederick Douglass Institute is a West Chester University program for advancing multicultural studies across the curriculum and for deepening the intellectual heritage of Frederick Douglass.

• Many public schools have been named in his honor.

• He was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the New York Writers Hall of Fame in 2010.

• On June 19, 2013, a statue of Douglass by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman was unveiled in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, the first statue representing the District of Columbia.