[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 128 (Wednesday, July 30, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   APOLOGIZING FOR THE ENSLAVEMENT AND RACIAL SEGREGATION OF AFRICAN 
                               AMERICANS

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 29, 2008

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 194, 
a resolution apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of 
African Americans. I thank Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Conyers, and 
Congressman Cohen for their efforts to bring this resolution to the 
floor and affording the House of Representatives the opportunity to 
apologize for America's Original Sin.
  Mr. Speaker, slavery in America resembled no other form of 
involuntary servitude known in history, as millions of Africans were 
captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals during 
the 246 years between 1619 and 1865. The Africans forced into slavery 
were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized, and stripped of their names, 
heritage, and dignity. Enslaved families were torn apart at the whim of 
their owners and sold as chattel.
  Mr. Speaker, slavery was officially abolished with the passage of the 
13th Amendment in 1865 and for the next 12 years African-Americans made 
fleeting political, social, and economic gains during Reconstruction, 
nearly all of which vanished under the system of de jure racial 
segregation known as `Jim Crow,' which thrived in certain parts of the 
Nation for nearly the next hundred years.
  Under the system of de jure segregation, African Americans could not 
vote, could not give evidence in court against a white person, were 
prohibited from marrying outside of their race, could not enter certain 
professions, could not serve on juries, and enjoyed few, if any, rights 
that whites were bound to respect. That is what the Supreme Court had 
decreed 27 years before in the Dred Scott decision in 1850.
  Mr. Speaker, the end of Reconstruction in 1877 ushered in a period of 
oppression and terror for African Americans. The withdrawal of the 
Federal Government's protection, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the 
proliferation of the ``Black Codes,'' and the Supreme Court's infamous 
decision in Plessy v. Ferguson combined to ensure that African 
Americans would treated as second-class citizens forced to lead 
separate and unequal lives for four more generations.
  Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for many today to understand just how 
oppressive it was for African Americans to live under the regime of Jim 
Crow. For those who couldn't understand why African Americans were so 
impatient to overcome segregation, Dr. King explained why ``we can't 
wait'' in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:

       ``[W]hen you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging 
     signs reading ``white'' and ``colored''; when your first name 
     becomes ``nigger,'' your middle name becomes ``boy'' (however 
     old you are) and your last name becomes ``John,'' and your 
     wife and mother are never given the respected title ``Mrs.''; 
     when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact 
     that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, 
     never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with 
     inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever 
     fighting a degenerating sense of ``nobodiness'' then you will 
     understand why we find it difficult to wait.''

  America has made great strides in overcoming its Original Sin thanks 
to the modern Civil Rights Movement, which ushered in the Second 
American Revolution led by giants like Thurgood Marshall and the Rev. 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  But we still have some distance to go before we will have fully 
perfected our Union. Even today there remain the badges and vestiges of 
slavery. African-Americans continue to suffer the consequences of the 
damage they suffered, both tangible and intangible, to human dignity, 
including the loss of life, the deprivations of liberty, the long-term 
loss of income, and denial of opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, just because we can never fully repay the debt owed to 
those enslaved and their descendants does not mean that we cannot 
acknowledge this tragic period in our nation's history and try to atone 
for it. That is the least we can do.
  The resolution before us is an excellent start and I strongly support 
it.

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