Major Owens' new book and forum on future of Congressional Black Caucus

Democratic former Brooklyn, NY congressional rep Major R. Owens, my ex-boss, has not been slacking since retiring from Congress at the end of 2006. Owens not only blogs at Huffington Post but is nearly finished with his groundbreaking "insider" study of his former colleagues of the "CBC" - the Congressional Black Caucus. The title, "The Peacock Elite: a Subjective Study of the Congressional Black Caucus."

On Monday, October first, 2007, Owens hosts an invitation-only discussion forum featuring veteran congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, Los Angeles), Oakland mayor and former CBC member, Ron Dellums, attorney and former CBC member, Louis Stokes, author and Univ. of Maryland poli sci professor, Ron Walters, and author and professor - now at Georgetown Univ. - Michael Eric Dyson (invited).

"...We are confronted with a need for a pivotal force to consolidate power. We must act now or our [Black American] middle class will be shoved off into the margins of society to whine among themselves while the Black masses are driven downward into a permanent underclass."

The invitation-only forum will be held at Library of Congress following the end of the week-long Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference (www.cbcfinc.org).