[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 93 (Friday, June 19, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               JUNETEENTH

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TRENT FRANKS

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 19, 2009

  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, today, June 19th, marks the 
anniversary of what has become known as Juneteenth,'' the name given to 
emancipation day by African-Americans in Texas. On that day in 1865, 
Union Major-General Gordon Granger read General Orders, No. 3 to the 
people of Galveston. It stated:

       ``The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with 
     a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all 
     slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of 
     personal rights and rights of property . . .

  It was an event in the early days of the 19th century, and especially 
in the darkest of hours during the Civil War that turned brother 
against brother and cost nearly 600,000 American lives, that few would 
ever have believed was possible, Madam Speaker.
  And yet here in America, where the words ``all men are created 
equal'' were formally recognized by government for the first time in 
history as a self-evident truth, we recognized that reducing the status 
of a black man to less than human simply because he was black was 
something that was both abominable to God, and fundamentally 
incompatible with the principles of human freedom on which America was 
built.

  Abraham Lincoln realized that truth, Madam Speaker. He said this 
about our Founding Fathers:

       ``In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the 
     Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be 
     trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They 
     grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they 
     reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They 
     erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's 
     children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the 
     earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew 
     the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they 
     established these great self-evident truths, that when in the 
     distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should 
     set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white 
     men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
     happiness, their posterity might look up again to the 
     Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the 
     battle which their fathers began--so that truth, and justice, 
     and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not 
     be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter 
     dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which 
     the temple of liberty was being built.

  Mr. Lincoln helped us decide as a nation, Madam Speaker, that 
regardless of what it cost, we would choose to once again recognize 
Imago Dei, the image of God in man, and although millions never would 
have believed it possible, the United States chose to abolish slavery 
once and for all.
  Yet today, Madam Speaker, few people who remember and celebrate 
Juneteenth realize that freedom has not yet fully come to all in the 
African-American community.
  Today, Madam Speaker, in the land of the free and the home of the 
brave; in the same nation that threw off the yoke of slavery and 
overturned the abomination of a Supreme Court decision that said the 
black man was not a person and not worthy of protection under the law; 
today in America, Madam Speaker, the lives of one in two black unborn 
children are lost before they ever see the light of day for the first 
time.
  And though some, captive to an invincible blindness, would deny this 
reality, Madam Speaker, we are all witness to what has been the 
deadliest form of discrimination in our country's history: the 
systematic elimination of millions. Today, fully one-half of all black 
Americans conceived in this country are killed before they are born, 
primarily at government-funded abortion clinics placed in our inner 
cities.
  Every day, Madam Speaker, almost 1,500 unborn black children are 
aborted. Black babies are aborted at between four and five times the 
rate of that of white babies. The daily killing of 50 percent of unborn 
black American children has cost the lives of close to 14 million black 
children. That equates to no less than a genocide against black 
America. It is a tragedy that beggars my ability to describe.
  This Juneteenth, as we recognize a great victory for human freedom 
and equality, Madam Speaker, we must also recognize that the most 
fundamental freedom and basic civil right of all--the right to live--
especially for black Americans, has never been more threatened or under 
attack.
  But Juneteenth should also give us hope, because it shows us that 
nations caught up in something as tragic as slavery can rise to victory 
and change history.
  Madam Speaker, I have a painting in my office depicting this floor 
and this chamber on Juneteenth, celebrating the end of slavery in 
America. It is a scene of pandemonium and celebration, illustrating the 
feeling of that day among men and women who realize something truly 
historic and great had happened--that an entire race of human beings 
had been recognized for the children of God that they were, and that 
America had been used to end the 7,000-year reign of the acceptance of 
human slavery in the world.
  That picture gives me great hope, Madam Speaker, because it shows 
that even something as evil and entrenched in human society as was 
human slavery can be changed.
  And Madam Speaker, because I have the privilege of living in America, 
I am just idealistic enough to believe that we can also rise to the 
occasion in this country and change history again, and end this tragic 
genocide called abortion on demand.
  And you know the irony, Madam Speaker, is that it may be African-
Americans, who were once enslaved in this country and who are now 
recognizing that abortion on demand is killing more of their little 
brothers and sisters than did slavery, who will be the ones to help 
lead America to place this modern day genocide behind us forever.
  By the grace of God may it be so, Madam Speaker.

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