[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 23 (Monday, February 26, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E208-E209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BLACK HISTORY MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 13, 2001

  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, today we're focusing on the right to vote.
  This is certainly an appropriate theme for this year's observance of 
Black History Month--coming, as it does, in the aftermath of a national 
election which may have been decided by breakdowns in voting machines 
and procedures, by faulty ballots, by voting place errors and abuses 
that effectively denied this most fundamental right to many citizens.
  Complaints of irregularities have been widespread in a number of 
states. Moreover, many of the absentee ballots cast by our military 
personnel--the men and women defending our freedom away from home, 
often in harm's way--were thrown out because of technicalities.
  I believe we can do better.
  In our country, the freest and most advanced in the world, there 
should be no excuse for not having a non-partisan, modern, well-managed 
system that ensures to the highest degree possible that qualified 
voters will have access to the polls and their votes will be fairly 
counted.
  If we could not do better, our form of representative government--
with its guarantee of freedom of speech and religion, from unjust fear, 
and from the denial of opportunity--would be on very shaky ground.
  Therefore, Mr. Speaker, let this Special Order serve as a reminder 
that it is the responsibility of each of us, as members of ``The 
People's House,'' to determine to the best of our ability exactly what 
went wrong in this last national election and to consider what should 
properly be done at the federal level to help ensure that it doesn't 
happen again.
  When I think of the voting franchise in the context of Black History 
Month, I first think of Selma.
  In the mid-1960's, this was the scene of a series of campaigns to 
secure the right to vote, which had been routinely denied to black 
citizens. People had lost their lives just for trying to get people 
registered. Black citizens who came to register were harassed and 
sometimes arrested on charges of unlawful assembly. Beatings had become 
commonplace. Many black people lost their jobs just for attempting to 
register and vote, suffering severe economic consequences. Today, this 
community presents keys to the city to those who fought for civil 
rights. But, back then, attempting to register and vote could be a 
perilous thing to do.
  These efforts culminated in ``Bloody Sunday,'' when our friend and 
colleague from Georgia, John Lewis, led demonstrators across the Pettus 
Bridge into the ranks of armed troops, rallying much of the country 
around the enactment of the Voting Rights Act--the crowning achievement 
of the Civil Rights Movement.
  That was a high point in a struggle that had been going on for nearly 
two centuries.
  In our country's formative years, it was thought by many that only 
people who owned property should be permitted to vote and participate 
in the political process. Free blacks were effectively excluded until 
after the implementation of the Voting Rights Act, even after the 
adoption of the 13th Amendment that granted the voting franchise to 
black males in 1866. This exclusion also extended to all women, who did 
not gain the right to vote until the ratification of the 19th Amendment 
in 1920.
  In fact, not one country granted its citizens universal suffrage 
prior to the 20th century--not Greece in the 5th Century B.C., England 
with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, or the United States with 
the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
  I'm told that Finland, in 1906, was the first country to elect its 
government on the principle of universal suffrage in competitive, 
multi-party elections. But perhaps no one inspired the world more than 
those who valiantly carried the torch of freedom here in the United 
States, providing a beacon of light for the whole world to follow.

[[Page E209]]

  Today, there are 119 countries with democratic forms of government--
almost two-thirds of the world's nations containing three-fifths of its 
people. For the first time in history, a majority of the world's people 
live under governments of their own choosing. Representative government 
can now be said to be a universal human value--a set of principles that 
are aspired to by the vast majority of people in our own country and 
around the world.
  In 1867, Sojourner Truth told a group of friends who gathered for her 
80th birthday: ``It is about time for me to be going. I have been 40 
years as a slave and 40 years free, and would be here 40 years more to 
have equal rights for all. I suppose I am kept here because something 
remains for me to do. I suppose I am yet to help to break the chain.''
  This continues to be our task today: to make sure the inalienable 
right to vote is never taken from anyone, and the chain remains broken 
for ourselves and for all human-kind.

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