[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 45 (Thursday, March 15, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E564-E565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          RECOGNIZING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 12, 2007

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 198, a 
resolution recognizing the significance of Black History Month. I am an 
original cosponsor of this important legislation.
  Celebrated during the month of February, Black History Month allows 
all Americans to celebrate the accomplishments of African Americans, 
the famous and the not so famous, who have made strides in all walks of 
life.
  I would like to share with you the words of one of the most noted 
African Americans in history--civil rights leader, Pan-African 
sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor poet, and scholar, W. 
E. B. Dubois, who said:
  ``The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of 
Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, 
the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, 
and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their 
brightness.''
  This is time to celebrate the trials, tribulations, accomplishments 
and contributions of African Americans, who have certainly created and 
attained so much in this nation's young history.
  As many of my colleagues know, many of our ancestors were brought 
here in the grips of iron chains on slave ships. Despite this 
demoralizing beginning, African Americans created a noble culture that 
encompasses the American spirit of survival through adversity.
  I would like to share a few stories of my past, of why it is so 
important that we continue to celebrate Black History Month and 
continue to reflect on our country's struggle with the equality of all 
people.
  More than 60 years ago, my parents, Robert and Ruth Cummings, grew up 
in rural South Carolina--near a small Clarendon County town called 
Manning. Some here may recall that Clarendon County would later have 
the dubious distinction of having its segregated mis-education of Black 
children successfully overturned in one of the Supreme Court's five 
Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation cases: Briggs v. 
Elliot.
  I will never forget the painful lesson that my father taught us 
children about our Grandfather's death in Clarendon County.
  When my father was a child in South Carolina, his father was taken 
back to their home after collapsing in church.
  Granddad lay close to death as two white doctors arrived to examine 
him--an older doctor and his younger assistant.
  Later on that moonless night, they emerged from the house onto the 
front porch.
  They did not notice that my father was sitting over in the corner, 
alone in the dark.
  ``We should take this man to the hospital in town,'' the younger 
doctor pleaded. ``It's not worth the effort,'' the older doctor 
replied. ``He's just a N-*-g-g-*-r.''
  My grandfather died on that dark, South Carolina night. As a result, 
I never had a chance to meet the man whose blood flows through my 
veins.
  I never sat on his knee. He never took me fishing. I never learned 
about the struggles and joys of this strong and good man.
  This, I think, is why I became convinced at an early age that we all 
must work together to create an America in which no life is considered 
to be without value.
  For Americans of Color, the implications of this personal tragedy are 
clear.
  Unable to depend upon the larger society to value our humanity, 
African American families have learned that we must create our own 
doctors and nurses.
  We founded first-rate medical schools like those at Howard University 
College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Charles R. Drew 
University of Medicine and Science and Morehouse School of Medicine.
  We have sent our children to study at world-class nursing schools 
like the ones in my District at the University of Maryland at Baltimore 
and Coppin State University.
  And, in response, brilliant African American men and women have 
followed their calling to become our healers.
  Some became famous--like Dr. Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins University.
  Yet, despite all of these efforts, the American medical establishment 
has confirmed that ``unequal treatment'' all too often remains the 
rule, not the exception, in the medical care that Americans of color 
receive today.
  In fact, African Americans receive inferior medical care--compared to 
the majority population--even when our incomes and insurance plans are 
the same. These disparities contribute to our higher death rates from 
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other life-endangering 
conditions.
  Consider this: The December 2004 issue of the American Journal of 
Public Health contained important findings by a research team headed by 
President Clinton's Surgeon 
General, Dr. David Satcher, and Professor Stephen Woolfe of Virginia 
Commonwealth University.
  The Satcher-Woolfe team examined data for the period of the Clinton 
years that they had gleaned from the National Center for Health 
Statistics.
  During the 1990s, they found that more than 886,000 deaths could have 
been prevented if African Americans had received the same health care 
as White Americans.
  My friends, when we consider our national health policy, we also are 
considering our national morality.
  We must face the harsh truth: Being Black in America continues to be 
a medically dangerous condition. And being both Black and poor can be 
deadly.
  But the crisis is spreading. Today more than 46 million Americans of 
every racial background are uninsured.
  And, as a direct result, far too many Americans of every race and 
creed are dying before their time.
  More often than not, health care issues are directly related to the 
broader challenge of providing access to economic opportunity.

[[Page E565]]

Again, the story of my own parents illustrates this point.
  My parents moved to South Baltimore in 1945.
  They knew that they had to leave South Carolina if their children 
were to have a better life.
  Life in Baltimore was difficult for my family. During my earliest 
years in South Baltimore, all that they could afford for themselves and 
their seven children was a small, rented, three-room house.
  Yet, it was there in South Baltimore that my life was changed.
  It happened at a neighborhood swimming pool, which at that time was 
segregated.
  We were just children looking for a way to escape the summer heat of 
South Baltimore's concrete and asphalt streets.
  In those days, South Baltimore's white children swam and relaxed in 
the Olympic-sized Riverside Pool that the City maintained not far from 
where I lived.
  Black children were barred from Riverside by the cruelty of 
segregation.
  We were consigned by the color of our skin to an aging wading pool at 
Sharp and Hamburg Streets. That wading pool was so small that we had to 
take turns to be able to sit in the cool water.
  Upset about our exclusion from our neighborhood's public pool, we 
complained.
  To their everlasting credit, Captain Jim Smith, Juanita Jackson 
Mitchell, and the NAACP organized a march.
  Other people soon joined in this struggle.
  I would like to be able to tell you that the White families at 
Riverside accepted us graciously. Sadly, that is not what happened.
  As we tried to gain entrance to the pool each day for over a week, we 
were spit upon, threatened and called everything but children of God.
  I still carry a scar that I received from a bottle thrown at me 
during the march. We were afraid. And our parents became concerned for 
our safety.
  Then, when all seemed lost, we saw Juanita Jackson Mitchell marching 
up the street toward our little group. With her were two reluctant, but 
grimly determined, policemen. They seemed more afraid of Ms. Mitchell's 
anger than of the jeering, hostile crowd.
  Four decades later, the history books say that the Riverside pool was 
peaceably integrated. We know the truth.
  My friends, the struggle to integrate that public swimming pool at 
Riverside may not have been a large thing in the eyes of the world.
  It was not Little Rock--not Selma, Birmingham nor St. Augustine.
  But Riverside has a LARGE meaning for me.
  At Riverside, I learned that there are dividing lines in every human 
lifelines that separate hatred from love.
  And I learned that we all will face a time when we must choose on 
which side of these lines we will take a stand.
  That choice is the same no matter who is the victim of prejudice, 
exclusion and hatred.
  We face that same choice today as we open up America to people from 
every continent, language, religion and race.
  And how we handle this choice will determine the future of 
generations yet unborn.
  Black History Month means so much to so many people and I want to 
thank Congressman Al Green for his leadership in introducing H. Res.198 
to recognize this fact. I strongly urge all my colleagues to support 
it.

                          ____________________