[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 30 (Thursday, February 25, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BLACK HISTORY MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. WILLIAM J. COYNE

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 24, 1999

  Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in observance of Black History 
Month.
  The United States has officially observed Black History Month every 
February since 1976. The idea of observing Black History Month must be 
credited to Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a prominent educator, historian and 
author, who created Negro History Week in 1926. For over 70 years, each 
February Americans have been encouraged to reflect upon the 
contributions that African Americans have made to American life and 
culture--and to think about the unfinished business this great country 
faces in addressing what has been referred to as America's own original 
sin--slavery and racism.
  The Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, an 
organization established by Dr. Woodson in 1915 to promote a better 
understanding and appreciation of the contributions that African 
Americans have made to this country, has selected ``The Legacy of 
African Americans in Leadership for the Present and Future'' as the 
theme for this year's observance of Black History Month. Accordingly, I 
wish to address my remarks today to some of the great African American 
leaders with which this country has been blessed over its lifetime.
  There is no shortage of articulate, influential African American 
leaders in our nation's history. These individuals influenced both the 
African American community and our society at large in powerful ways as 
they fought to win freedom, fair treatment, and better lives for all 
African Americans.
  African American leaders have been influential throughout this 
country's history--even in the time of slavery. Brave men like Nat 
Turner, Gabriel Prosser, and Denmark Vesey, for example, organized and 
led doomed but valiant slave rebellions against slave owners and the 
militias that maintained the institution of slavery with force. 
Abolitionists like Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth undermined the 
institution of slavery by speaking, writing, and lobbying against it--
at considerable personal risk. And brave individuals like Harriet 
Tubman risked their lives and their hard-won freedom to return to 
slave-holding states to lead other African Americans north to freedom 
along the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, over 200,000 
African American men fought in the Union Army and Navy--to free their 
enslaved brethren, to prove that African Americans were as brave and as 
tough as whites, and to improve the claim of all African Americans to 
the rights already enjoyed by whites.
  In the post-Reconstruction era, African Americans like Booker T. 
Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Mary Church Terrell shaped attitudes 
within the African American community and won the respect of many white 
Americans across the country.
  In the early 1900s, prominent African Americans like W.E.B. DuBois 
and Ida Wells-Barnett worked to form the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People, an organization dedicated to the 
elimination of segregation and discrimination. Also in those years, 
Marcus Garvey led an influential black nationalist movement and fought 
institutional racism in the United States.
  In the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, A. Philip Randolph worked to organize 
African American workers and end the division of the labor movement 
along racial lines. He also worked diligently to end discrimination in 
the military and the government.
  And since the end of World War II, African American leaders like 
Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Adam Clayton Powell, Jesse 
Jackson, Colin Powell, and Ralph Bunche have made their mark on 
American history--in our courts, our schools, our government, our 
politics, the military, and in foreign affairs. African American women 
like Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisholm, and Barbara Jordan broke old 
barriers and won the respect of millions of Americans for their 
integrity, their intelligence, their dedication, and their professional 
accomplishments.
  This recitation of African American leaders is by no means all-
inclusive. In fact, it touches upon only a few of the African American 
leaders who have shaped this country's history. Their names are 
intended merely to document the observation that African American 
leaders have played an important positive role in our nation's past.
  As part of the annual observation of Black History Month, it is 
instructive to remind ourselves that in the face of racism, 
discrimination, and violence, many African Americans have successfully 
taken action to change our society and determine their own destiny 
within it. I believe that African Americans today can draw great 
satisfaction and strength from that history.




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