[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 56 (Wednesday, May 10, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  RECOGNIZING THE SHARED HISTORY OF SLAVERY OF FRANCE AND THE UNITED 
                                 STATES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. MAJOR R. OWENS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 10, 2006

  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the African slave trade stands out in the 
annals of world history as one of the greatest crimes ever committed 
against humanity. It is important that we institutionalize every 
possible reminder of this horrible chapter in our civilization.
  I want to take this opportunity to commend the French Republic and 
the work of Madame Christiane Taubira for setting May 10th as an annual 
national day in France to remember its role in slavery and the slave 
trade.
  On the afternoon of the 23rd of May 1848, Africans and their New 
World descendants enslaved by France were set free. That was 45 years 
after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, when France sold most of its 
territory in the Americas to the fledgling USA, and 15 years before 
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.
  Madame Christiane Taubira is a member of the French parliament, 
representing her native Guiana in South America. She is also an 
economist. On May 10th, 2001 Madame Taubira successfully proposed 
French legislation that thereafter declared slavery a crime against 
humanity, making France the first country in the world to make this 
declaration.
  Madame Taubira's work in France complements the work of Professor 
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall here in the United States. Not only is Dr. Hall a 
distinguished historian, she is also a New Orleans, Louisiana native.
  Hurricane Katrina's devastation in the Gulf Coast region has given an 
urgency and importance to the work of both Professor Hall and Madame 
Taubira.
  Our active understanding and appreciation of the French and American 
culture and history of New Orleans and Louisiana, as part of the Gulf 
Coast, will help the people of the region as they restore and rebuild 
their community over the coming months, years and decades. We cannot 
honor a unique community and its people without honoring its history 
that has grown over four centuries from both French and American roots.

                          ____________________