[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H441-H448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BLACK HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pearce). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

[[Page H442]]

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in my role as Chair of the 
Congressional Black Caucus for the 108th Congress to talk about Black 
History Month and the state of our union for Americans of color.
  Throughout the month, we should all take a moment to remember the 
heroes whose legacies of service have shaped this great country, 
America.
  We should remember Rosa Parks, a leading force behind the 1955 
Montgomery bus boycott. Activist Fannie Lou Hamer, the daughter of 
sharecroppers who fought for African American suffrage in Mississippi. 
Dr. Charles Drew, whose blood plasma research has saved millions of 
lives. Their bravery and sacrifice must not be forgotten.
  While we celebrate the past, we also should honor the African 
American women and men who are making a difference today. We should 
thank Marion Wright Edelman for her tireless work on behalf of 
America's children. We should salute the nearly 300,000 African 
American men and women who proudly serve in our military. We should 
express our gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of African American 
police officers, firefighters, and first responders who dedicate their 
lives to serving and protecting us. Their constant acts of sacrifice 
serve as a model for all of us.
  During Black History Month, the Congressional Black Caucus embraces 
this year's theme as determined by the Association for the Study of 
African American Life, whose theme is: The Souls of Black Folk: 
Centennial Reflections. We encourage all Americans to commemorate our 
shared past and work together toward creating a more just and fair 
society.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight, I, along with my colleagues, want to take this 
time to reflect on the state of our union and focus on the issues that 
are central to the lives of most Americans; issues like education of 
our children, access to health care, for any who might need it, 
prescription drug coverage for our seniors, civil rights protections 
for all Americans, economic security and national security.
  During the 108th Congress, we will face many challenges. We will face 
the challenges of securing our homeland, getting our economy going 
again, putting people back to work, closing the education and health 
care gaps that exist in our communities, providing prescription drug 
coverage for our seniors, and thwarting those who want to roll back 
civil rights protections.
  Mr. Speaker, it gives me great honor and it is a privilege to yield 
to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballance).
  Mr. BALLANCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
our distinguished Chair of the CBC. I am honored and, indeed, I am 
right proud that in the middle of a month that has been set aside as 
Black History Month to stand in the well of the House of 
Representatives of the United States of America representing 619,000 
citizens of rural, poor, eastern North Carolina, known as the first 
congressional district.
  I am honored to be here as a freshman member of the 108th Congress. 
It is amazing that princes and kings and clowns that caper in sawdust 
rings, and ordinary people like a young boy who grew up on a tenant 
farm in Bertie County under civil rights, the 13th and 14th amendments 
to the United States Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil 
Rights Act, all of the great decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court guaranteeing that we hold these truths to be self-evident; that 
all men, including Africans in America, are created equal and that they 
are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among 
them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

                              {time}  2000

  And I want to say that as we have struggled to gain equal rights and 
civil rights and to celebrate those rights and to build on those rights 
and to have the opportunities to work, to earn our living, to pay our 
taxes, to build institutions, to build businesses, to send our children 
to college, yes, to historically black universities founded by people 
fresh out of slavery, and even to those universities that at times in 
the past have denied our entry.
  Is it not amazing, as we stand here tonight, there are great debates 
going on in these halls of this prestigious institution known as the 
United States Congress, and I am told that the debate that was going on 
a minute ago about issues of welfare reform that this majority and this 
Congress, this Republican majority, Mr. Speaker, is going to use brute 
power and minutia rules to deny freshman Members like me my civil 
rights and to deny my constituents their rights, their constitutional 
rights, to have an opportunity to debate those issues involved in the 
welfare rights reform bill.
  That is to say, in this great, and I will call it the ``great 
depression'' that we are going into, where we are losing jobs all over 
this country because the party in power wants to give a tax cut to some 
rich Americans, and therefore we have no jobs. And now we have a bill 
that is going to say that people who cannot get a job have to work even 
longer hours or they will be thrown off the welfare rolls whether they 
deserve this assistance or not. Would it not be one of my civil rights?
  And I know it is my constitutional right as a Member of this body to 
have an opportunity to debate that issue, to debate whether or not we 
are going to have funds to provide child care adequate so that those 
parents who are threatened to be thrown off welfare will indeed have an 
opportunity to go to work or to go to school.
  Yes, in the midst of this Black History Month, we celebrate the 
birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation 
Proclamation. President Lincoln, a member of the Republican Party, a 
party that supported civil rights at one time, a party that supported 
the enfranchisement of African Americans and former slaves. Yet as we 
stand here today, the leader of that former great party and the 
President of our country has come out foursquare against the concept of 
affirmative action; and therefore I will contend that he is against 
Black History Month.
  Why do I say that? What is Black History Month if it is not 
affirmative action? There was a time when those who wrote history left 
out of the pages of history about people of color, and so Carter G. 
Woodson came along, and as he read the history books, as he read the 
tabloids, he did not see anybody in the books that looked like him, and 
he saw none of the great works that Africans were doing in America. And 
so he started what became Black History Week, affirmative action, and 
then it became Black History Month, affirmative action.
  And now we have an opportunity under a plan that has been approved by 
the United States Supreme Court to say that race can be one factor in 
deciding admissions to the University of Michigan, and we find that the 
President is opposed.
  I am going to close by saying it is a long journey from Africa to 
America. It is a long journey from slavery to freedom. It is a long 
journey from the back of the bus to being the driver and owner of the 
bus company. But we have made it, and I contend that one reason we did 
was because of those human rights that were at one time properly 
enforced, and I hope and I pray that they will be in the future.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman and to say 
to him that several members of the caucus were moved, I think it was 
just yesterday, when the gentleman was talking about how at one time he 
was plowing fields and did not imagine himself in the Congress of the 
United States of America. And so many members of the Congressional 
Black Caucus have similar stories, have come through very, very 
difficult times and are doing everything in our power every day and 
every hour to make sure our children and our children's children have 
these same opportunities.
  One area that is clearly of great importance to the souls of black 
folks would be our health care, and we are very honored to have in our 
Congressional Black Caucus the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands 
(Mrs. Christensen), whom I will yield to.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  As amazing as it is, the words of the distinguished African American 
scholar, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, resound as loudly today as they did when he 
first wrote them more than 100 years ago. How appropriate and on target 
are his words as he remarks on the lack of health care for African 
American at that time and as we compare them to our situation today.

[[Page H443]]

  I want to take the liberty, though, of focusing on his treatise on 
the ``Philadelphia Negro'' because in chapter 10 we see in his 
description a clear indictment of this Nation's health care system as 
it existed in the African American experience. One hundred years ago, 
and shamefully still today it has been bereft of both health and care. 
In short, while there have been some advances in the last 100 years, on 
the whole, nothing has changed.

  Several recent surveys, for example, clearly show that the general 
public even today thinks that health status and access to care is equal 
among all population groups. In this, we echo what Dubois wrote over 
100 years ago that ``the fact of high death rates and other signs of 
neglect of the laws of physical health have not yet been apprehended by 
the general public,'' he wrote. After a wealth of articles and 
scientific and lay journals, reports commissioned by this body and with 
the Congressional Black Caucus and other organizations representing 
people of color giving voice to the inequities in health at every 
opportunity, my question is, is anyone listening?
  Infant mortality in our community is 2.3 times more than in those of 
our white counterparts. AIDS affects African American eight times more 
than it does whites. Death rates from heart disease are 30 percent 
higher in blacks. Our incidence of diabetes is more than twice as much 
as in the white population. The black male has the lowest life 
expectancy of any population group in our country, and in our 
hemisphere only men in Haiti have a lower life expectancy than those in 
our Nation's Capital.
  The chapter on Negro health also focuses on the lack of reliable or 
complete statistics, which is still an issue that is very relevant 
today. Just last week we cosponsored a Hill briefing on the Institute 
of Medicine's report on public health for the 21st century. In that 
briefing, the importance of collecting accurate data for minorities and 
using this data to build research, treatment, and prevention 
infrastructures was stressed. It is essential if we are ever to close 
the gaps in health status, as we must, that we collect and analyze 
important data on race, ethnicity, and other socioeconomic factors that 
are relevant or cause them.
  Dubois also spoke of poor health infrastructure, as he termed it, 
``the lack of nearly all measures to prevent the spread of disease.'' 
This is the state still of our deteriorating health care infrastructure 
in our community and many rural communities. A chilling thought in days 
such as these, where we are on high alert for a chemical or biological 
terrorist attack. If our communities are not prepared to protect our 
residents and respond to any such attack on their behalf, then no one 
is prepared and no one can be protected.
  We in this caucus recognize, as Dubois did back then, that health 
does not exist in an unhealthy environment, and our Congressional Black 
Caucus agenda reflects that. ``Broadly speaking,'' he wrote, ``the 
Negro, as a class, dwell in the most unhealthful parts of the city'' 
and have ``a large degree of poverty.'' We still have the lowest income 
levels, the highest unemployment, and many of us still live near toxic 
sites.
  But the most compelling statement in that chapter in the Philadelphia 
Negro, which I would ask us all to contemplate as we go through yet 
another term, another budget process in the face of these glaring 
disparities in health is this:
  Dr. Dubois wrote: ``The most difficult social problem in the matter 
of Negro health is the peculiar attitude of the Nation toward the well-
being of the race. There have, for instance, been few other cases in 
the history of civilized people where human suffering has been viewed 
with such peculiar indifference.''
  Given the many deaths caused by the lack of health insurance in this, 
the last industrialized nation that does not guarantee health care to 
its residents, given the cuts or level funding of programs designed to 
address our health care deficiencies, the refusal of the department and 
this body to target dollars to build capacity in our, the most 
affected, communities, the movement to remove the words ``minority'' 
and ``disparity'' from the health lexicon, and the failure to respond 
adequately to the recommendations of several Institute of Medicine 
reports on the inequities of health care among people of color and 
those who speak different languages in this country, I think it is 
appropriate for us to ask ourselves the question whether this attitude 
has indeed ever changed in the more than 100 years since those words 
were written.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. I thank the gentlewoman.
  Tonight, as we celebrate Black History Month, we look at all aspects 
of African American history and again reflecting on our theme, the 
Souls of Black Folks Centennial Reflection, we have the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Davis), one of our new Members, who has been just a 
tremendous asset to us, and we are anxiously looking forward to 
continuing to work with him.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for yielding to me.
  I have the distinction of representing the Seventh District of 
Alabama which, as so many people should know if they do not, is the 
home of the civil rights movement in this country. It is the 
battlefield where so many of the battles were fought in the 1960s: The 
City of Birmingham where 40 years ago this April, children were 
marshaled in defense of equality in this country, and they were met 
with literally the teeth of dogs and the bite of fire hoses; Selma, 
Alabama, where 38 years ago individuals had to march across a bridge 
under a threat and rumor of sniper fire in order to petition for their 
right to vote.
  Montgomery, Alabama, is no longer in my district, but it is my 
hometown, and of course it is the city where Dr. King picked up the 
torch of the civil rights movement in part of the 20th century and gave 
it so much of its vibrancy and so much of its currency.
  What is striking about my district in 2003 is that if Martin Luther 
King could somehow come back and visit west Alabama and visit the 
battlegrounds on which he fought, he would see cities and counties that 
look very much the same as they did four decades ago.

                              {time}  2015

  The rate of poverty in four counties in my district hovers around 40 
percent, 40 percent in times of economic growth and 40 percent in times 
of economic decline. It is a constant condition of despair.
  We have talked about health care tonight. Eight hospitals in my 
district have closed their doors in the last 2 years, and suffice it to 
say that the disproportionate number of people who have been 
disenfranchised on the health care front in my district have been 
people of color.
  If Dr. King could somehow travel through the streets of Birmingham 
today, he would find parts of that inner-city that look exactly as they 
did 40 years ago. He would see young black men, able-bodied, casting 
about looking for some anchor in their life, looking for some economic 
anchor in their life.
  Too much of my district, which has its urban and rural components, 
too much of my district looks like America looked in 1963; and that 
does not say as much as it should say about where this dream stands. 
Forty years after the fact, 40 years after the battles of 1963, America 
stands frozen in so many ways.
  I had an opportunity to give a speech to a high school class in 
Selma, Alabama, on Martin Luther King Day. Selma is a racially divided 
city. It is a city that is 60 percent black, 40 percent white. As I 
stood in the gymnasium, Mr. Speaker, I looked around the gymnasium as I 
got to the part in the speech where I talked about Dr. King's legacy of 
integration, and it struck me all of a sudden that every single student 
sitting in that gymnasium was black. In a public school, 49 years after 
Brown v. Board of Education, 38 years after the Selma to Montgomery 
march, the legacy is a segregated public school system. And with 
inequality comes disparity in resources; with separateness comes a 
separateness in resources.
  The dream is in an interesting state today, because too much of 
America is financially unchanged, unchanged in every measure that we 
could possibly draw on the floor of this House.
  People sometimes wonder why we have a Congressional Black Caucus. 
People sometimes wonder why we have Black History Month. They wonder 
why there is a need to continue to talk

[[Page H444]]

about these things. And my answer to them is this: as long as we have a 
country where the conditions of one's life are determined in large 
measure by the conditions of one's birth, the American Dream is not 
what it ought to be. As long as we have a country where the lifespan of 
a black child born today differs dramatically from that of a child of 
any other race born today in this country, there is a story that still 
needs to be told.
  Some say, including Justice Scalia, that we can get past the problem 
of race if we stop talking about it. That sounds good, but that is not 
the world that we live in. The world that we live in is one in which we 
have to keep talking about these struggles, because so many people have 
never lived them; but they have also never lived the lessons of that 
time.
  We are the country that we are today; we are the envy of the world 
because of a very simple promise. The promise of America is that 
wherever you begin, you have an opportunity to rise. That is the 
rhetorical reality of our country. Until it becomes the political 
reality and the economic reality and the social reality, we fall short 
of the American Dream, and the state of this union is in some 
disrepair.
  So I call on all people of conscience to recognize that America has 
work to do. I call on all people of conscience to recognize that there 
are battles that still need to be fought. Because until we smooth out 
the gaps in this society, until we tear down the walls that continue to 
divide us, the legacy that we honor and the dream that we honor is 
incomplete. There is work that needs to be done, and that is the 
unfinished task of this caucus.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the gentleman.
  The gentleman mentioned Martin Luther King. Certainly we are very 
proud of all that Dr. Martin Luther King did. One of the things he said 
is that a citizen must assert the full measure of his citizenship, and 
the very things that this Congressional Black Caucus stands for are 
merely asserting the full measure of our citizenship.
  One thing about asserting the full measure of your citizenship, you 
have to serve, and you have to serve this country, and African 
Americans have played very significant roles in the military, have 
played very significant roles in exploration, in space.
  I am very pleased now to yield to the distinguished gentleman from 
the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Payne).
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. Let me 
commend the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus for the 
outstanding job that he has done in the short time that he has been in 
that position. I think that we will reach all kinds of heights with his 
leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, as we commemorate Black History Month this year, there 
is a sober and anxious mood in our Nation. Our communities are worried 
about the uncertain state of the economy, the loss of jobs, the growing 
budget deficit, the budget cuts, which threaten to eliminate vital 
services for our children, students and for our senior citizens.
  We are going to work diligently in the months ahead to address these 
pressing concerns and to try to prevent the gains that African 
Americans have made from being reversed.
  We have all been touched by the recent tragedy which took the lives 
of seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. They represented 
the best of our Nation and our world: courage, diversity, optimism, and 
the pursuit of scientific knowledge for the betterment of humanity.
  Among the crew were a young woman from India who immigrated to the 
United States of America to follow her dream, and with the Columbia 
mission she became the only Indian woman to travel into space; an 
Israeli man whom his country loved, the first Israeli astronaut, a 
symbol of national pride for Israel; and an African American astronaut 
from New York who was formerly a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, 
Michael Anderson.
  He was an outstanding student of physics and astronomy who was 
selected by NASA in 1998 to make his first flight, which was aboard the 
Space Shuttle Endeavour. It traveled 3.6 million miles in space during 
138 orbits around this world to reach the Mir Space Station.
  In 1998, there is a picture on my wall that I took with Michael 
Anderson when he came to my Washington office to discuss how he could 
try to get more African American boys and girls involved in the space 
program, in physics, in mathematics, and he was talking about promoting 
more interest in NASA.
  In fact, there was another African American astronaut whose name was 
Robert E. McNair, who was one of the seven crew members killed on the 
Challenger that exploded 73 seconds after its launch on January 28, 
1986. On this mission he was supposed to carry out extensive studies on 
Halley's Comet.
  Another African astronaut, Frederick D. Gregory, served as the 
commander of the Space Shuttle Discovery, which also performed 
important missions for NASA.
  The first African American woman to join the space program, Dr. Mae 
Jemison, traveled aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 
1992. Dr. Jemison is a chemical engineer, a scientist, physician and 
astronaut, who worked as a Peace Corps volunteer, a medical officer in 
Sierra Leon and Liberia in West Africa.
  Looking back in history this month, we pause to remember the men and 
women who laid the groundwork, often at great personal risk, for the 
benefit of future generations.
  We are reminded that African Americans have achieved greatness in 
many fields: law, medicine, physics, the military, education, 
journalism, music, theater and literary arts.
  But we must remember outstanding men like Ralph Bunche, the United 
Nations Undersecretary who became the first African American to receive 
the Nobel Peace Prize.
  We honor the memory of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American 
to become an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court with the great 
May 17, 1954 case that he argued.
  While we are speaking of firsts, let us congratulate our colleague, 
the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), who made history last month by 
becoming the first African American woman to earn a seat on the 
prestigious House Committee on Ways and Means.
  We also pause to continue the debt of gratitude we owe to strong 
women of the past, like Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist and orator 
who risked her life, and Harriet Tubman, who helped conduct the 
Underground Railroad.
  As a former teacher, I am committed to passing along stories of 
African American heroes to our children and grandchildren, so that they 
may dream of achieving great things in their lives.
  I am proud of the fact that my brother, William Payne, who serves in 
the New Jersey State Assembly, authored a bill which was signed into 
law which the Governor of New Jersey, which establishes the New Jersey 
Amistad Commission to develop teacher-training programs to promote 
educational and awareness projects regarding the things that African 
Americans have done and their descendants, and the African Americans' 
contribution to the development of this country.
  The commission will work to promote a more comprehensive study of 
African American history by revising the history books of New Jersey 
and promoting more extensive classroom discussion. The Amistad 
Commission is named after the enslaved crew of the ship Amistad, who 
organized an uprising in 1939 to gain their freedom. The crew had their 
case successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court.
  As I conclude today, as our Nation awaits and watches the possibility 
of war which continues to loom, Black History Month is a good time to 
reflect that many African Americans have given service to our country.
  African Americans fought in every major battle of the Revolutionary 
War: Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Long Island, Valley 
Forge, and Yorktown. Crispus Attucks, an African American, on March 5, 
1770, was the first person to give blood at Boston Commons where he was 
brought down by the British when he protested taxation without 
representation.
  It was a black Minuteman, Peter Salem, at the battle of Bunker Hill, 
when they said don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, who 
brought down Major Pitcairn, who led the British military.

[[Page H445]]

  In the Civil War we had many top African Americans. In 1862, the 
First Kansas Colored Volunteers won one of the first battles at Island 
Mound, Missouri. There were 168,000 black combat troops in addition to 
200,000 members of service units in the War Between the States.
  One out of four Union Navy personnel was black. The black calvary, 
with the Buffalo Soldiers, showed their importance at the Battle of San 
Juan Hill, where they prevented the Rough Riders, Teddy Roosevelt, from 
being annihilated at San Juan Hill. It was the Buffalo Soldiers that 
saved him, but we heard very little about them. As a matter of fact, 
they had a lower desertion and alcoholism rate than any other calvary 
people in our history.
  Concluding, W.E.B. DuBois in World War I said, in spite of the 
problems, ``first your country, then your rights,'' and urged African 
Americans to go to war.
  The 369th Regiment from Harlem spent 181 days in the trenches, a half 
a year, without relief. This is history that no one knows about. And no 
one ever spent 181 days in the trenches. Yet a person who lived a block 
from me, Mr. Needham Roberts, along with Private Henry Johnson, 
captured 30 Germans and held them for weeks, and people still do not 
know how they were able to keep this large number of Germans at bay.
  My Uncle John Garrett was in the invasion of Normandy. When that was 
over, D-Day, they allowed the white troops to march through the Arch of 
Triumph; but the black troops were brought up a day later, and they 
were unable to march through the Arch of Triumph.
  President Eisenhower, then general of the Army, wrote a letter to 
every combatant on D-Day, except African Americans. My uncle did not 
get a letter. But my Uncle John Garrett, we brought that to the 
attention of President Clinton, and all of the surviving D-Day African 
American veterans who we could find, and we worked with the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Rangel) and his Committee on Veterans Affairs that 
he was working on, we found many African Americans, and President 
Clinton sent the letter that chief of our Army, Eisenhower, at the time 
refused, only because they were black.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I wanted to emphasize, 
the gentleman spoke about the astronaut who recently perished, coming 
to his office and talking about having more young African American boys 
and girls go into science and math, and that is one of the reasons why 
we even do this this evening, to remind our children of all of the 
great things that African Americans have done, so that they can follow 
on that path and have models to emulate.
  Speaking of a model to emulate, I am very pleased to yield to my 
friend and colleague from the great State of Georgia (Mr. Bishop), who 
is going to address and will continue on with some of the things that 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) was talking about with regard 
to our contributions, military contributions.
  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, by learning about the good and 
the bad things that happened in our past, we gain a deeper 
understanding about how to correct the bad and preserve and strengthen 
the good. That is why the study of history is important. It tells us 
about the past and it guides us to a better future, for he who 
understands his past controls his future.
  Black History Month is important for just this reason. I commend the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus for arranging tonight's Special Order, and I 
thank all of our colleagues for their support and for their 
participation.
  At a time when our country is intensely focused on national security, 
I will talk about some of the many African American contributions to 
our Nation's safety and well-being. Many have lost their lives in 
combat. They are part of a long tradition of service and sacrifice. As 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) pointed out, that goes back 
to the Revolutionary War when more than 5,000 blacks served on the 
front lines.
  By World War II, with black leaders calling on black citizens to 
fight fascism abroad and racism at home, more than a fifth of our men 
and women in uniform were, in fact, African American. Today, more than 
ever, blacks are at the forefront of defending the Nation, from the 
lower ranks to the top echelons of military leadership.
  One of the trailblazers was Henry O. Flipper, the first black 
graduate of West Point. Henry Flipper was born in Thomasville in an 
area of southwest Georgia that I now have the privilege of 
representing. Although he was born into slavery and had little 
opportunity to acquire a formal education, his brilliance, his courage, 
and steadfast forbearance enabled him to secure an appointment to West 
Point and to graduate with distinction after years of mistreatment and 
ostracism.
  Although he had an exemplary record on the western frontier while 
serving as the only black among the Army's 2,100 officers, he was 
unjustly dismissed from the military. Nothing stopped him, however. He 
went on to have an illustrious career as an engineer, a surveyor, a 
government official, playing a significant role in the development of 
the oil industry, the railroads, and the Nation's expansion in those 
formative years.
  At the time of his death in Atlanta in 1940, he was a forgotten man. 
But in later years, he has been remembered with memorials at West 
Point, in Thomasville, Georgia, ceremonies at the Pentagon and at the 
White House as someone who resourcefully and bravely paved the way for 
others.
  Lieutenant Flipper served at the time of the legendary Buffalo 
Soldiers, the thousands of black cavalrymen who were deployed in the 
West for some 20 years to protect settlers, escort wagon trains, assist 
homesteaders in remote areas, even carrying the mail when no one else 
would, playing an invaluable role in our Nation's growth and 
development in the late 19th century.
  These young men, mostly in their early 20s, came from many States in 
the aftermath of the Civil War, who endured harsh and often dangerous 
conditions in the performance of their duty and they were greatly 
relied upon. There are countless stories, like the time 34 Buffalo 
Soldiers came to the rescue of a railroad camp which was under attack 
by a Cheyenne war party during the Indian wars. The soldiers broke 
through an encirclement of more than 100 warriors and successfully 
defended the workers, who were all saved. Many were seriously injured, 
one fatally. But, as always, they did their duty bravely.
  Many of the senior military leaders who were still in office when the 
Tuskegee Airmen were formed in 1941 would have been familiar with the 
story of the Buffalo Soldiers and their record of service. Certainly 
the Buffalo Soldiers helped pave the way.

  The military was still segregated at the outbreak of World War II, 
and the all-black fighter group that was activated at the Tuskegee Army 
Airfield had to deal with racism and prejudice every day. But the 
commitment of the pilots and the crews and the support personnel never 
wavered. They steadfastly went about their duties, about their 
business, and eventually flew scores of combat missions in Italy and 
other areas of Europe. They fought heroically, though some were lost. 
They proved to be tremendously effective in bringing down hundreds of 
enemy planes and providing support for ground troops advancing in 
Germany.
  Today, we express the thanks of a grateful Nation to the soldiers, 
sailors, and airmen of all races and creeds and ethnic backgrounds 
whose service and sacrifice have kept us free and kept us strong for 
more than 2 centuries, and to those on the home front who also fought 
to make freedom available for all.
  Today, we also pay tribute to those thousands of African Americans 
who are now engaged in protecting our national security here in the 
homeland and those deployed around the world. God bless you, and may 
God continue to bless your service to America.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman it was 
the great theologian Zwingli who said, so often people who make 
tremendous contributions make them when they are unseen, unnoticed, 
unappreciated, and unapplauded. And I appreciate the gentleman lifting 
the names of so many who have given so much to this country.
  Eleanor Roosevelt once observed that human rights must begin in small

[[Page H446]]

places close to home. They are the world of the individual person where 
every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, and 
equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning 
there, she said, they have little meaning anywhere.
  It is my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Watt), who has given his blood, sweat and tears to making sure 
that the rights of all Americans are protected.
  Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to join with my 
colleagues this evening in participating in this Black History Month 
Special Order. In my neighborhood, we do not only celebrate Black 
History Month in February; it is a year-round, ongoing celebration.
  The thing that always gives me great pleasure when I rise on this 
floor and participate in this 1 hour of comment with my colleagues is 
that I am always fascinated that I learn a lot from my colleagues of 
their experiences and other things that I did not know about the 
history of the African American people in this country. I am 
tremendously proud to be a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and 
this body.
  Our celebration of black history is a daily event because we 
understand that we stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King and 
Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois and Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou 
Hamer and Rosa Parks who sat down so that we could stand up, and those 
four gentlemen from my congressional district in Greensboro, North 
Carolina, who sat in at the fountain, at the counter there, and started 
a movement that spread throughout our Nation to guarantee that the 
fight for justice and equality would continue.
  Unfortunately, most of what we have talked about, a lot of what we 
have talked about today, suggests that many of the inequities, many of 
the injustices, many of the inequities still continue today. It is on 
that that I want to focus a little bit because some of our colleagues 
would have us believe, and our President, I think, would have us 
believe that the era of addressing these inequities is over, that there 
is no need to have an affirmative action program anymore.
  I have often wondered, if you started a race at one point and you 
started somebody 100 yards ahead and the other participant in the race 
100 yards behind, how long would it take and how fast would they have 
to run to make up that 100 yards. There is, I am sure, a mathematical 
formula that could anticipate that. Unfortunately, we cannot run 
faster, we cannot learn quicker, we cannot make up the economic 
disparities that exist. We cannot make up the health disparities that 
my colleague, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. 
Christensen) has described, that continue to exist, by running the same 
pace without some kind of adjustments being made.
  We could not make up our position in this Congress of the United 
States from North Carolina from 1898 until 1992 without an affirmative 
action that took into account that racism existed and disparities 
existed and the unwillingness of part of our community to vote for 
another part of our community.
  So I think Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. 
Dubois and Sojourner Truth and all of these people that we pay tribute 
to during our Black History Month celebration would not want us to 
dwell necessarily on giving them honor because they were not about 
honor. They were about justice and equality and running faster and 
trying to catch up to close that gap. Unfortunately, that gap continues 
to exist today in education, in economic disparities, in health care.
  As part of our obligation as members of this caucus, and as part of 
our obligation as Members of this Congress, not only members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, to assure that what took 200 years or 300 
years to create, we do not assume can be wiped out with running faster 
for 30 or 40 years. It is going to take a long time to make up these 
disparities, and I applaud my colleagues for continuing to run faster 
and work harder and to work for equality as all of these people on 
whose shoulders we stand worked for equality.
  We must continue to do the same.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, and I want 
to thank him for working so hard on the very issue that you just spoke 
about.

                              {time}  2045

  I am very pleased, Mr. Speaker, to yield to my distinguished 
colleague from the great State of California who has made it her 
mission to address the issue of AIDS in Africa and made it her mission 
to address many, many concerns of people who have often been left out 
and unheard, the great lady from the State of California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that very humbling 
introduction and for his leadership in putting together this very 
important Black History Month Special Order, also for his really steady 
and magnificent leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus.
  Mr. Speaker, today we do stand at the crossroads in our battle 
against the global AIDS pandemic. Now because this is Black History 
Month, I would like to take a minute and set forth the historical 
record with regard to this issue and the role of the Congressional 
Black Caucus in bringing the African and the Caribbean AIDS pandemic to 
the attention of the United States Congress, the Clinton administration 
and the Bush administration.
  After years of hard work on the part primarily of the Congressional 
Black Caucus and our friends in the activist and the NGO community, we 
are finally seeing the issue of AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean in the 
national spotlight. Now, several years ago my friend, a former 
colleague we all know and respected, Congressman Ron Dellums, and 
several American and South African activists developed a very 
comprehensive plan to combat AIDS in Africa.
  Now, we envisioned creating an AIDS Marshall Plan in Africa that 
would mirror the original Marshall plan that helped our friends and 
allies in Europe rebuild from the aftermath of World War II. So I have 
introduced the AIDS Marshall Plan as legislation. Let me just say that 
each and every member of the Congressional Black Caucus signed on as 
co-sponsor. I think that is a historical fact that needs to be 
recorded.
  As my colleagues on the Congressional Black Caucus, especially the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the gentlewoman from the 
Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Payne), as the CBC took up the cause in Congress and Ron Dellums forged 
ahead outside of Congress, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) helped 
us fashion the AIDS Marshall Plan into the legislative framework for a 
global trust fund to be housed at the World Bank. Finally in 2000, we 
began to see some progress as our pushing and prodding gained support 
for the issue in this House.
  In July of 2000, we were successful in adding $42 million to the FY 
2001 foreign ops bill for global AIDS spending, which was really a 
small amount compared to the actual need; but it took a monumental 
effort on the part of the Congressional Black Caucus, the activist 
community, and our minority leader, the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Pelosi).
  Soon after, thanks to our consistent consultations with President 
Clinton and other administration officials, we won passage of the 
Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act, which was signed into law in 
the summer of 2000 and which formally committed the United States to 
seeking the establishment of the global trust fund to fight HIV and 
AIDS. This was in August of 2000.
  The passage of this bill was a major achievement and really I must 
say a vindication of the very hard work that went into the initial AIDS 
Marshall Plan put forth by Congressman Ron Dellums.
  Now in the last Congress, we made great strides towards the passage 
of other comprehensive global AIDS bills, and we really managed to 
engaged this administration and our colleagues in the House and the 
Senate on this issue. Most importantly, we witnessed the international 
community, led by Secretary General Kofi Annan embrace the newly 
established global AIDS fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, 
again, an achievement which the Congressional Black Caucus is very 
proud of.

[[Page H447]]

  Now, in many ways the result and the leadership of primarily the 
Congressional Black Caucus' work over the last 5 years was evident at 
the State of the Union address 2 weeks ago when President Bush 
announced an emergency plan for AIDS relief in Africa and the Caribbean 
that would devote 15 billion over 5 years to treating those who were 
infected and those who are not. But our work on this issue does not end 
here, and we still have a long way to go before we can truly claim 
victory over this horrendous disease.
  There are still an estimated 29.4 million Africans and 440,000 
Caribbeans living with HIV and AIDS. Over a third of the populations of 
many sub-Saharan African countries are infected with AIDS, and in the 
Caribbean nearly 90 percent of all the AIDS cases are in Haiti.
  In Africa and in the Caribbean, however, we are not just fighting 
against AIDS, but we are fighting tuberculosis, malaria and other 
diseases, high rates of infant mortality, the lack of access to health 
care, underfunded education systems, underdeveloped agricultural 
capacity, poor infrastructure and excessively high debt burdens. All of 
these developmental issues are tied to HIV and AIDS, and all of them 
contribute to its spreads in one way or another. That is why the fight 
for us continues.
  The President's initiative represents a major step in a marathon, and 
we intend to make sure that the United States and the international 
community finishes the race. We cannot compromise on the substance of 
what our response to the pandemic should be, and in particular we will 
continue to push for your funding for the global fund because 
multilateral institutions do work and they deserve our support.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me say that during this Black History 
Month I hope that we all, members of the Black Caucus, this entire 
body, rededicate ourselves to the ideals that so many sung and unsung 
African American heroes and sheroes have lived and died for, and that 
is for liberty and justice for all.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire as to how much time we 
have remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pearce). The gentleman has 4 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I grant time to the gentleman from New 
York, who has fought issues with regard to education (Mr. Owens) for 
many, many years and has stood at the forefront of that issue and many 
other issues.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman also for 
sponsoring this Special Hour on Black History Month, and I want to 
discuss a few milestones and events in African American history that 
are related to education and that should not be forgotten.
  We should not forget that one time to teach reading to a slave was a 
crime. If you want to know why we are in a position where we need 
affirmative action, if you want to know why at present the median net 
worth of white families in America is $120,000 while the median net 
worth of black families is America is only $17,000 then take a look at 
where we had to come from.
  For 232 years it was a crime to teach a slave to read, and then we 
went through a period where we had to endure separate but equal; but 
separate but equal was never equal. I came from the Southern schools, 
the Southern schools. All my life I was in Southern schools, and there 
was a point where the books and desks and everything that we had had 
been used for 5 or 6 years by white schools before they were shipped to 
the black schools. So in every way there was no equality.
  We should remember this. We went through separate but equal, and now 
we are in a situation where it is official neglect. The money, the 
resources necessary for education is not there. We have a lot of 
rhetoric supporting public education where most of our black youngsters 
are educated, but we do not have any resources.
  My time is short so I will have to cut this sort. I just want to say 
that education is a civil rights issue of our time. It is a civil 
rights issue we must focus on. The slaves who were set free understood 
very well the most important thing for them to do was to read. People 
who learned to read had a great deal of status in the new free-slave 
communities, and we have to get back to that in our African American 
communities.
  Education must be our first priority. It is the only way out of 
poverty. It is the only way to achieve political equality.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, our last speaker is a lady from the great 
State of Texas, who I yield the balance of our time to. But we just 
remind America that as we celebrate Black History Month, every day 
black history should be celebrated. Without further ado, I yield the 
balance of our time to the great lady from the State of Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee), who is also the first vice chair of the Congressional 
Black Caucus.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
gentleman. And I will count the conclusion, Mr. Speaker, to be the 
beginning. And that is to acknowledge that we are just beginning to 
explain to America some of the issues that still plague us but also 
offer to America a sense of hope, that we are Americans, African 
Americans who believe in this country and believe in America's promise.
  That is why I think it is appropriate to cite from the letter in the 
Birmingham jail of Martin Luther King. And when he wrote this letter on 
toilet paper as he was incarcerated, he was responding to the clergy 
who had condemned him for coming from Atlanta to Birmingham to agitate 
in Birmingham. He simply said, ``We have waited for more than 340 years 
for our constitutional and God-given rights.''
  And so I conclude this evening with a beginning and that is that we 
must continue to fight for our civil rights. And we hope that we can 
educate America that even though it appears that the civil rights era 
is over we begin anew. It is extremely important to recognize that the 
Kerner Report written in 1968 is in actuality a statement of America 
today. Oh, yes, we have made achievements. We are very gratified that 
we have leaders in academics, leaders of corporation, leaders in 
science; but yet we still find an unequal community as it relates to 
criminal offenses and judgments, racial profiling, the now attack on 
affirmative action which I believe is an attack out of lack of 
understanding and ignorance. Because if you understood the University 
of Michigan's very astute and very precise program, Mr. Speaker, you 
would understand that it is equal to giving 20 points for being an 
alumnus child, 20 points for living in northern Michigan, 20 points for 
speaking a different language. It is not in any essence a quota or 
preference. It is an outreach to make sure the university reflects 
America.
  So we say today that even though we had Brown v. Board of Education 
in 1954 and many of us thought we had integrated America's school, we 
are in fact going backwards by showing a large degree of segregation. 
It means that our work is just beginning, Mr. Speaker. It means that I 
call upon my colleagues here in the United States Congress to join us 
not in celebrating African American History Month on a day or night 
when the members of the Congressional Black Caucus rise to speak to 
you, but let us do it in our actions by working with us to ensure the 
Supreme Court does not rule affirmative action unconstitutional. Let us 
encourage Republicans and Democrats to file briefs that will support 
the idea of a color blind society and an outreach society that ensures 
a diversity as it should be.
  In conclusion, let me suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that we are 
reminded of the words of Martin Luther King explaining why we cannot 
wait. We cannot wait because we are still unequal. The scale is still 
unbalanced, and it is necessary that we fight not isolated as one 
community against another but as Americans recognizing that this Nation 
is better by understanding our history, being able to suggest that our 
history is American history, and fighting with us for America to reach 
its promise.
  Mr. Speaker, my entire statement is as follows:
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss an issue that is timely: the 
State of Civil Rights. I am pleased that the Congressional Black Caucus 
has reserved this hour to focus on Black History Month. This year's 
theme is the ``State of the Union 2003.'' We heard recently the 
President's State of the Union. The President did not speak to the real 
State of the Union for African Americans.

[[Page H448]]

  We celebrate Black History Month at a time when our civil rights are 
under attack. I joined many of my colleagues in filing an amicus brief 
in support of the affirmative action plan of the University of 
Michigan. Affirmative action is under attack in this country more than 
30 years after the Supreme Court's decision in Baake.
  Nearly 35 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive 
Order 11365 to establish the National Advisory Commission on Civil 
Disorders to respond to the civil unrest in urban cities. The problems 
identified by the commission: disparities in police practices, 
unemployment and underemployment, inadequate housing and poor education 
remain problems in the African American community three decades later.
  The 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission, also known as 
the Kerner Commission Report, recommended expanding opportunities for 
higher education and removing the financial barriers to higher 
education. Yet, here we are, three decades later, defending affirmative 
action efforts, battling high unemployment rates in the African 
American community, dealing with poor housing and deteriorating 
education in urban areas for children in K-12.
  Affirmative action has moved to the center of public debate with the 
challenge to the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. 
It has become the catchall phase for those who challenge efforts to 
promote diversity.
  Affirmative action is a set of tools used to give qualified 
individuals equal access and equal opportunity to employment or 
education. It means taking positive steps to end discrimination so that 
managers or other people who make hiring decisions have to give every 
candidate a reasonable chance to compete. What it does not mean is 
quotas or preference for unqualified applicants.

  I would like to remind my colleagues that before the release of the 
Kerner Commission Report, affirmative action law can be traced back to 
the early 1960s, when the Warren Court, and then the Burger Court, 
dealt with the problem of integration in America's public schools. The 
basic statutory framework for affirmative action in employment and 
education services is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Public and private 
employers with 15 or more employees are subject to a comprehensive code 
of equal employment opportunity regulations under Title IV of the 1964 
Act.
  Affirmative action is needed to address present day discrimination, 
and the problems that women and minorities must contend with when they 
apply for jobs, educational opportunities or try to move up the 
corporate ladder. We need affirmative action because discrimination 
still exists and is holding America back from achieving the highest 
principles of fairness and equality.
  It dismays me that affirmative action is under such intense scrutiny. 
If the Supreme Court rules against the University of Michigan, 
opportunities to enter the doors of our great higher educational 
institutions will be denied to thousands of minorities. This is truly a 
watershed case, and I am disappointed that the President has come out 
publicly against the school's affirmative action plan. The University 
of Michigan established a sound and well thought through admissions 
plan both in the undergraduate school and the law school. This was 
clearly a solid use of affirmative action. The school followed the 
spirit of the law and considered a range of variables in admitting 
students, including unique talents, interests, experiences, leadership 
qualities and underrepresented minority status.
  We do not live in a colorblind society. The 14th amendment to the 
U.S. Constitution guarantees that no state shall ``deprive any person 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to 
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''
  When affirmative action works, qualified women and minorities have a 
fair chance at employment, education, and business opportunities.
  The 1968 Kerner Commission found that the extent of underlying socio-
economic problems caused racial strife. While I believe that African 
Americans have made tremendous strides, we still have a long way to go 
to reach true equality. African Americans on a daily basis face 
prejudice, police brutality, and racial profiling. Unfortunately, we 
are not often in the position to seek redress through the judicial 
system. The judicial nominees to our nation's courts are becoming more 
and more conservative. I opposed the Pickering nomination and I oppose 
the Estrada nomination.

  Socio-economic barriers still exist in the African American 
community. There are 36.4 million African Americans in the country, 
according to the latest census. This is 12.9 percent of the total 
population, yet the poverty rate for African Americans is 22.7 percent.
  African American History Month is a celebration of people who have 
gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand, of people who stand 
among us today transfixed on a goal to achieve even more. It is a time 
to pause and renew our commitment to realize the progress and 
achievements of our people and to go much further as we write our own 
chapter. A time to continue the legacy of African American History.
  President John F. Kennedy said in 1963 that ``Every American ought to 
have the right to be treated as he would like to be treated, as one 
would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be 
treated.'' I believe those words ring true today 40 years later.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I commend my 
colleague, Mr. Cummings for reserving this special order to celebrate 
Black History Month, a commemoration that dates back to 1926 when Black 
Americans celebrated Negro History Week.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that the citizens of the United States, 
especially young African-Americans, recognize how we've grown and 
developed since then. And also realize and appreciate the important 
contributions of their forebears and contemporaries to the development 
of this nation and American society.
  I am proud to stand before you today to salute two outstanding 
citizens from my childhood home to Waco and congressional district of 
Dallas. James Andrew Harris was born on March 26, 1932 in Waco, Texas. 
As a graduate of Houston-Tillotson College in Austin with a chemistry 
degree, Mr. Harris worked in the Nuclear Chemistry Division of the 
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California. There he 
was part of the team that discovered and identified elements 104-
Rutherfordium and 105-Dubnium on the Periodic Table of Elements.
  Dr. Otis Boykin was born in 1920 and raised in Dallas. His mother was 
a homemaker and his father a carpenter. Dr. Otis attended Fisk 
University and the Illinois Institute of Technology. Unfortunately, his 
parents could not afford his tuition and he dropped out of college 
after two years. Thereafter, Dr. Boykin built electrical devices used 
today in all guided missiles and IBM computers. He also developed a 
control unit for an artificial heart simulator (pacemaker) that helps 
millions of cardiovascular patients. Otis Boykin will be remembered as 
one of the greatest inventors of the twentieth century.
  Mr. Speaker, today I am worried that given the current educational 
settings of our country, future Otis Boykins and James Andrew Harrises 
will not have the opportunity to pursue their dreams or realize their 
talents.
  I want to focus briefly on what is going to happen in my State of 
Texas. It is reported that at least $2.7 billion must be cut from Texas 
public education over the next two years to balance the state budget 
without a major increase in taxes or fees. The University of Texas at 
Austin will hire fewer professors, forcing students to scramble for the 
classes they want. At Texas Women's University, fewer police officers 
may patrol the campus. Some intercollegiate sports may disappear from 
Collin County Community College. Tuition will probably rise at Dallas 
County Community Colleges. Universities, medical schools, community 
colleges and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board collectively 
must slash $343.8 million in the middle of the school year.
  Mr. Speaker, one University of North Texas official summarized the 
current situation very clearly: ``The monster came through our door, 
and now he's sitting on our lap.''
  I am further concerned as I read new stories, such as a Washington 
Post article which recently indicated that Oregon is on the verge of 
cutting as many as 24 days from its school year. The United States 
ranks 18th among the industrial nations in school year length. How can 
we expect American schoolchildren to learn in 180 days as much as 
Korean children learn in 220? They cannot!
  Just a couple of weeks ago we listened to President Bush's well-
written, well-delivered State of the Union address. Yes, it was nice to 
hear words about diversity, higher education, making college more 
affordable, and leaving no child behind. But words are cheap! What has 
been done to increase the diversity of our populations in higher 
education? What is being done to make higher education more affordable? 
And how will we ensure that no child is really left behind in our 
elementary and secondary public school education system?
  Mr. Speaker we should invest in the education of under-privileged 
young people here at home. It will improve not only our educational 
system, but our society as a whole. So many Otis Boykins and James 
Andrew Harrises will have the opportunity to revolutionize technology 
that affects people's everyday lives.
  Again, thank you to Congressman Cummings for organizing tonight's 
special orders.

                          ____________________