[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 82 (Wednesday, May 12, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H2199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SLAVERY REMEMBRANCE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Green) for 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the British statesman, Sir Winston
Churchill, is credited with having stated that those who fail to learn
from history are doomed to repeat it. This is the reason why, in part,
I will be introducing legislation for a slavery remembrance day.
Currently, no such day exists in the United States.
National days of remembrance provide an effective means to honor
those impacted by horrific events. They prevent the tragedy from fading
from our memories by educating the generations to come, and they
highlight the modern-day implications of such events.
My resolution would provide a day for slavery remembrance, and the
language of the resolution would commemorate the lives of all enslaved
people, while condemning the act and the perpetration as well as
perpetuation of slavery in the United States of America and across the
world.
The resolution would discuss the Middle Passage, the Underground
Railroad, and the lives of Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown.
It would also make the 18 persons who were elected to Congress from the
Reconstruction era as honorary cosponsors of the resolution in a
posthumous way.
I am proud to do this, and I ask that all Members please consider
becoming original cosponsors of the resolution.
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