[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 88 (Monday, May 22, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         HONORING THE 27TH ANNUAL D.C. BLACK PRIDE CELEBRATION

                                  _____
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 22, 2017

  Ms. NORTON, Mr. Speaker, this Memorial Day Week, May 22nd to 29th, 
Washington, D.C. celebrates ``The Ties that Bind: Twenty-Seven Years of 
D.C. Black Pride!''--the theme of the 27th annual D.C. Black Pride.
  This multi-day festival begins on May 23rd at the Human Rights 
Campaign with the 2017 D.C. Black Pride Awards Reception. We 
congratulate Countess Clarke Cooper and Daryl Wilson, recipients of the 
Welmore Cook Award; Check It Enterprises, recognized with the 
Leadership Award; Unsung Heroes SaVanna Wanzer and Shannon Garcon; 
Aaron Bryant, winner of the President's Award; and Maurice David 
Parker, the Charlotte Smallwood Volunteer of the Year for 2017.
  Black Pride continues through Memorial Day with community town halls; 
educational and interfaith workshops; a poetry slam hosted by Mary 
Brown; a film festival; an interfaith worship service; and social 
events, including speed dating, breakfast, brunch, dinner and happy 
hours. The Black Pride parties range from Super to Grand; Mega to 
Ultimate; Picnic to Pool; and Purposeful to Epic. Performances by 
musicians, dancers, and artists enliven the festival. Sunday, the 
festival's penultimate day, features its main event, a Cultural Arts 
and Wellness Exposition and Epic Live, at the Walter E. Washington 
Convention Center. Black Pride culminates with a traditional Memorial 
Day picnic, the ``Us Helping Us Annual Picnic in the Park'' at Fort 
Lincoln Park and concludes with evening parties thereafter.
  The D.C. Black Pride festival began during my freshman year in 
Congress, Sunday, May 26, 1991, at Banneker Field on Georgia Avenue 
across the street from Howard University. I have watched it mature from 
an ad hoc event to what is now widely considered to be one of the 
world's preeminent Black Pride celebrations. It now draws more than 
30,000 participants from the United States, Africa, Europe, and the 
Americas to our nation's capital.
  D.C. Black Pride fostered the beginning of the Center for Black 
Equity (formerly known as the International Federation of Black Prides, 
Inc.) and the ``Black Pride Movement,'' which now consists of 40 Black 
Prides on four continents.
  I commend Shannon Garcon, Genise Chambers-Woods, Reginald Shaw-
Richardson, Ralph ``Rocky'' Ferguson and Gladece Knight, the volunteer 
Advisory Board that assists. Earl D. Fowlkes, Jr. and Kenya Hutton with 
the coordination, planning, and execution of D.C. Black Pride. I take 
pleasure in noting that this year Earl commences his third decade of 
involvement with D.C. Black Pride and the Black Pride Movement around 
the globe.
  As Black Pride comes to town, I also take this opportunity to inform 
the celebrants and to remind my colleagues of the various limitations 
Congress has placed on the District of Columbia. Despite paying more 
federal taxes than 22 states and having the highest per capita federal 
tax rate in the United States, the residents of Washington, D.C. still 
have no full voting representation in Congress.
  I ask the House to join me in welcoming all attending the 27th annual 
D.C. Black Pride celebration.

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