[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
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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.
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