[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 25 (Tuesday, February 7, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  INTRODUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS CONGRESSIONAL GOLD 
                               MEDAL ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 7, 2023

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the United States 
Colored Troops Congressional Gold Medal Act, which would award the 
Congressional Gold Medal to the African Americans who served with Union 
forces during the Civil War. Approximately 200,000 African American men 
served in the Union Army and 19,000 African American men served in the 
Union Navy. I am proud to present this overdue expression of our 
national appreciation for these remarkable individuals. Senator Cory 
Booker has introduced the companion bill.
  Since the colonial era, African Americans have served the United 
States in times of war. While African American men served in the Navy 
since its establishment, there was resistance to enlisting them to take 
up arms for the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. It was not 
until January 1, 1863, when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation 
Proclamation, that the Union Army was ordered to receive African 
American men. On May 22, 1863, the United States War Department issued 
General Order Number 143, which established the Bureau of Colored 
Troops for the recruitment and organization of regiments of the Union 
Army composed of African American men, called the United States Colored 
Troops (USCT). Leaders such as Frederick Douglass encouraged African 
Americans to enlist to advance the cause of citizenship: ``Once let the 
[B]lack man get upon his person the brass letter, `U.S.', let him get 
an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his 
pocket, there is no power on [E]arth that can deny that he has earned 
the right to citizenship,'' wrote Douglass.
  African American sailors constituted a significant segment of the 
Union Navy, making up 20 percent of the Navy's total enlisted force. 
Although there were rank restrictions on African Americans in the Navy 
before the Civil War, this policy changed after the establishment of 
the USCT, when the Union Navy started to compete with the Union Army 
for enlistment of African Americans. Yet, in practice, most African 
Americans could not advance beyond the lowest ranks of ``boy'' and 
``landsman.'' In the Union Army, the USCT fought at Milliken's Bend, 
Louisiana; in Petersburg, Virginia; and in Nashville, Tennessee, among 
other sites. The USCT at first were paid less, were given used uniforms 
and poor equipment and could never become officers. Many USCT were 
assigned as guards on fortifications throughout the Union, including 
the Defenses of Washington, which, by 1865, was one of the most heavily 
fortified cities in the world. During the Civil War, African American 
women were not allowed to formally enlist as soldiers or sailors, 
though they served as nurses, cooks, spies and scouts for the Union 
Army and the Union Navy.
  For generations after the Civil War, the contributions of the African 
Americans who served with Union forces were excluded from historical 
memory. Not until Public Law No. 102-412, which I sponsored and which 
authorized the establishment of a memorial on federal land to honor 
African Americans who served with Union forces during the Civil War, 
were they officially commemorated. The African American Civil War 
Memorial, located in the District of Columbia, features a bronze statue 
of soldiers, an African American sailor and family, and is surrounded 
by The Wall of Freedom, which lists the names of the members of the 
USCT.
  Patriots and heroes who rose in service to a nation that would not 
fully recognize them, the African Americans who served the Union during 
the Civil War deserve our recognition for their contributions to the 
grant of emancipation and citizenship for nearly 4 million enslaved 
people and to the preservation of the Union.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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