[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H4999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
                         CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I rise to join my friends and colleagues 
in celebrating Juneteenth.
  Madam Speaker, 154 years ago, on June 19, 1865, Texas became the 
final State in the U.S. to officially abolish slavery. This was a 
pivotal day in American history, one that represents both the checkered 
past of our Nation as well as the rising above it.
  September 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation 
Proclamation, and it took effect on January 1, 1863, throughout all the 
formerly Confederate States.
  Madam Speaker, 2 years later, Texas was the last stop on the road to 
the abolition of slavery in America on June 19, known as Juneteenth.
  On a day like Juneteenth, we encourage everyone to come together and 
celebrate this occasion and recognize not what makes us different from 
one other, but what we all have in common, all that we share: the love 
of freedom and individual rights that we are one people.
  There is still more to be done, but a lot of progress has been made 
the last 150 years, and we will continue to make that together as a 
society.

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