[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 6 (Monday, February 4, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S281-S282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BLACK HISTORY MONTH

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I rise today to honor February as 
Black History Month. Each February since 1926, our Nation has paused to 
recognize the contributions of black Americans to the history of our 
Nation. This is no accident, February is a significant month in black 
American history. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, President Abraham 
Lincoln, and

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scholar and civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois were born in the month of 
February. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified 132 years 
ago this month, giving black Americans the right to vote. The National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 
February in New York City. Last Friday, February 1, was the forty-
second anniversary of the Greensboro Four's historic sit-in. And on 
February 25, 1870, this body welcomed its first black Senator, Hiram R. 
Revels of Mississippi.
  I want to take time during this important month to celebrate some of 
the contributions made by black Americans in my home State of Oregon. 
Since Marcus Lopez, who sailed with Captain Robert Gray in 1788, become 
the first person of African descent to set foot in Oregon, a great many 
black Americans have helped shape the history of my State. Throughout 
this month, I will come to the floor to highlight some of their 
stories.
  One important story in the history of the Pacific Northwest belongs 
to a black pioneer named George W. Bush. George Washington Bush, a 
veteran of the War of 1812, headed west on the Oregon Trail in 1844 
hoping to leave the racism of Missouri behind him. A wealthy farmer, 
Bush purchased six wagons, packed up his friends and family, including 
his Irish wife, and settled in The Dalles. Upon arrival, Bush 
discovered that the racism he was trying to escape was, tragically, 
alive and well in the Oregon Territory.
  While slavery was illegal in Oregon, my State shamefully tried to 
drive out blacks through the enactment of exclusion laws, including a 
disgraceful ``lash law.'' The lash law required that a black person be 
whipped twice a year ``until [they] shall quit the territory.'' As a 
result of this law, Bush was forced to move across the Columbia River 
to live under the more hospitable rule of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
Bush thrived as a farmer and rancher in the Puget Sound area, and his 
success attracted a large number of settlers to the Northwest. Because 
his prosperity helped spur the tremendous growth of settlements north 
of the Columbia, Bush, one of the first black Oregonians, is now 
credited by some historians for bringing the land north of the Columbia 
River, present-day Washington State, into the United States.
  Bush might never have completed his journey to Oregon had it not been 
for one of the first Oregon Trail guides, a black man named Moses 
Harris. Harris spent years trapping in the Northwest, and was one of 
the explorers who christened Independence Rock in what is now the State 
of Wyoming. Harris was renowned for his knowledge of the region, and, 
on more than one occasion, saved lost or stranded wagon parties from 
certain death along the treacherous route to Oregon. He guided 
thousands to the Pacific Northwest, including the famous Whitman party, 
and did so until his death of cholera in 1849. Without Moses Harris, 
and people like him, Oregon, as we know it, would not exist today.
  Moses Harris and George Bush are only two early examples of the black 
men and women who changed the course of history in Oregon and in the 
United States. During the remainder of Black History Month, I will 
return to the floor to celebrate more Oregonians like Harris and Bush, 
whose contributions, while great, have not received the attention they 
deserve.

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