[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 15, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE 135TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA EMANCIPATION ACT

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 15, 1997

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to my distinguished 
colleague, Representative Don Manzullo, for his generous and thoughtful 
attention to the District and to Emancipation Day and for his 
consistent assistance to District residents in this annual observance. 
We also very much appreciate the work of DC Reading is Fundamental in 
this educational event. Our thanks go as well to Mr. Arnold Goldstein, 
superintendent of the National Park Service, and to other Park Service 
officials and employees for their cooperation in helping us celebrate 
this commemorative event, just as the Park Service has been 
consistently helpful to the District in so many other ways.
  It is 135 years after the emancipation of slaves in the District, yet 
we continue to celebrate the emancipation of 3,100 District slaves. 
Emancipation in the District was of further importance because it was 
the first such action and culminated in the general emancipation of 
slaves in the United States. If I may, this day has importance for my 
family as well, because Richard Holmes, my great-grandfather, was in 
the District that day. Our family does not claim him as a run-away 
slave hero, because Richard Holmes simply walked off a Virginia 
plantation one day and laid down roots in the District. I can only 
imagine what this day must have meant to him.
  The abolitionist movement in the District was especially strong. 
Abolitionists regarded slavery in the capital of the United States a 
national shame. Regrettably that expression was to continue to apply to 
other forms of denial of basic rights unbecoming to the capital of the 
free world. The District was a bastion of lawful racial discrimination 
and did not integrate its schools until the Supreme Court struck down 
illegal segregation in 1954. In 1997, the District remains the only 
jurisdiction where Americans pay taxes without full representation in 
Congress and the only jurisdiction, including the four territories, 
whose laws can be overturned at the whim of Congress.
  Still, we are pleased today to note that when President Lincoln ended 
slavery here, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, the 
District led the country out of the most serious form of oppression any 
nation can impose. Our country would have been even better off had it 
followed the pattern laid out in the District of Columbia Emancipation 
Act because emancipation in the District did not involve war; slave 
owners were compensated and former slaves were allowed to emigrate and 
were themselves compensated, although at a lesser amount.
  We continue to celebrate April 16th as District of Columbia 
Emancipation Day in the city, but surely not out of nostalgia or false 
comparison of ourselves to those who lived under slavery in the last 
century. I am very pleased about the participation of District of 
Columbia Reading is Fundamental. The involvement of DC Reading is 
Fundamental focuses us on today's problems and priorities, a worthy way 
to respect the memory of those who had no way to overcome such 
problems. The value of noting District of Columbia Emancipation Day is 
not history for its own sake, despite that worthy objective, but 
history to inspire our re-energized efforts to eliminate today's 
problems. Slavery is not one of them. Children who cannot read is a 
problem. Good schools where children function at grade level and 
improving high school graduation rates are where we must focus in 1997. 
Reducing crime, building strong family units, helping welfare 
recipients find work, reforming the District government, rebuilding our 
city--these are the issues of today.
  The 3,100 District of Columbia residents who were emancipated by 
Abraham Lincoln on April 16, 1862, probably could not read and probably 
would have given everything to acquire that skill. In their memory, we 
commemorate their emancipation day and pledge to do all we can to 
emancipate ourselves from the problems of today and to accept the 
challenges of tomorrow.




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