By Special to the Daily World
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several civil right activists attended a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing recently, expressing their concern with BP in the lack of payments to the underserved and underrepresented victims one year after the oil spill.
Attending the June 2 hearing were comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory; Dr. E. Faye Williams, chair of the National Congress of Black Women; and Art Rocker, community activist and chair of the Operation People for Peace.
The hearing on “Making the Gulf Coast Whole Again: Assessing the Efforts of BP and the Obama Administration After the Oil Spill,” was held in the Rayburn House Office Building.
“We are highly disenchanted regarding BP not paying the claims of the underserved and underrepresented,” said Art Rocker, who also is a National Board Member of the SCLC and lifetime member of the NAACP.
Rocker along with the above mentioned leadership attended the hearing to voice just that after 10,000-plus claims of the poor have yet to be paid.
Gregory said, “BP refuses to pay the claims of underserved and underrepresented.”
Williams said, “We are here to see how we can all work together and what can we do collectively — not what we cannot do. BP must pay.”
Also included in this group were Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network.