[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 18, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E992-E993]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EXPOSING RACISM

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 18, 1999

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of 
March, I have introduced articles into the Congressional Record to 
document the continued effects racism and discrimination are having on 
our nation. Although the killings of James Byrd in Jasper, TX, and 
Isaiah Shoels in Littleton, CO have painfully thrust the acts of overt, 
violent racists into the national spotlight, the articles I have 
entered into the Record will show, if they do not already, that we can 
not sit by silently while this cancer grows unchecked.
  The origins of our great nation were nascent with promises of 
freedom, justice, and equality

[[Page E993]]

under the law. However, for more than 200 years, the enslavement of 
Africans and then Jim Crow laws obfuscated our task--our obligation--to 
make America ``one nation under God.'' We were blinded to the veracity 
of inspirational phrases like, ``with freedom and justice for all,'' 
``all men are created equal,'' and ``Epluribus Unim''--from the many 
one.
  However, during the civil rights movement, many brave Americans of 
all races stepped forward to denounce the laws and systemic bigotry 
that perpetuated an American version of apartheid. They walked, 
marched, and ``sat-in'' in an attempt to reclaim the legacy promised to 
all of us by our founding fathers. One such person was Linda Brown. In 
1951, this little girl was in the third grade. Although there was an 
elementary school seven blocks from her house, young Linda was forced 
to walk over a mile to another elementary school. The reason to make a 
little girl walk through a railroad switch yard on her way to school? 
She was black and the school located seven blocks from her house was 
for white students only.
  Many years ago, George Santayana wrote, ``Those who cannot remember 
the past are condemned to repeat it.'' Because I revere the warning 
contained in these prescient words, today I am introducing a resolution 
to recognize the 45th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in 
Brown versus Board of Education. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 
unanimous decision, boldly struck down segregation laws in public 
schools and upheld the equal protection laws guaranteed to all 
Americans by the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  However, in the aftermath of that historic decision, many of the 
freedoms won by the Brown decision have been rolled back or are 
currently under assault. White flight and a conspicuous attack on our 
public schools have facilitated the de facto resegregation of our 
public schools. All of the lessons we should have learned from this 
important event in our shared American history, seem to be once again 
eluding us.
  I respectfully submit this legislation to remind us all that we have 
a moral obligation to purge the divisive evil of racism out of the 
fabric of harmony, justice, and equality that is our shared American 
legacy. We have a responsibility to not only remember the past, but to 
learn from it.
  If in fact, ``those who cannot remember the past are condemned to 
repeat it,'' then Mr. Speaker, I pray that my efforts to document 
racism in America and to remind our nation of the significance of the 
Brown versus the Board of Education, wake us from our collective 
slumber to experience the beauty of our shared destiny.

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