[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 109 (Tuesday, June 30, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H4331-H4332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CELEBRATING AMERICA'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY: CONTRADICTION AND HOPE

  (Mr. Jackson of Illinois was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, my reflections on the Nation's 
250th anniversary:
  Happy birthday, America.
  Mr. Speaker, 250 years ago, a remarkable experiment was launched upon 
this continent. It announced to the world that liberty was a universal 
birthright, that governments derived their authority from the consent 
of the governed, and that human dignity deserved political expression. 
It was a dream of uncommon brilliance.
  Yet on that very same day, another story marched beside it--a 
nightmare of uncommon cruelty. Freedom and slavery entered history 
together in an unholy matrimony.
  The Declaration proclaimed equality while hundreds of thousands 
remained in chains. The promise was magnificent. The practice was 
monstrous. The vision soared toward Heaven while the reality remained 
anchored in human bondage.
  This is not merely the paradox of America's founding. It is the 
permanent tension within the American story.
  Our Republic has always contained both contradiction and conviction, 
hypocrisy and hope, exclusion and expansion, injustice and aspiration.
  Yet history teaches us something very profound. The greatness of 
America has never been that it was born perfect. Its greatness has 
rested upon its capacity to become better. Every generation has been 
asked a single question: Will you enlarge the promise, or will you 
shrink it?
  That question confronts us today, for what a nation chooses to 
remember becomes its operating system. What it chooses to forget 
becomes its character. Memory is not nostalgia. Memory is 
infrastructure. It determines how a people think, how they govern, how 
they educate their children, and how they understand their obligations 
to one another.
  When a nation tells the whole truth about itself, it becomes 
stronger. When

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it edits its past for comfort, it weakens its future. History is not an 
accusation. History is instructional. History is not about assigning 
perpetual guilt. History is about cultivating perpetual wisdom. That is 
why institutions devoted to preserving our collective memory matter so 
profoundly.
  The National Museum of African American History and Culture is not 
merely a building of bronze and stone. It is one of America's greatest 
classrooms. It reminds us that the story of African Americans is not a 
chapter added to America's history. It is one of the central texts from 
which American history is written. African Americans in history make 
American history whole.
  The labor of enslaved people helped build this Nation's wealth. They 
built this building. The courage of abolitionists challenged its 
conscience. The sacrifices of Black soldiers defended its flag. The 
determination of teachers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, clergy, 
laborers, and ordinary citizens expanded the meaning of democracy 
itself. To diminish those stories is not simply to diminish African 
Americans. It is to diminish America itself.
  Throughout our history, there have been recurring efforts to narrow 
the Nation's memory. Certain voices have always argued that some 
stories are too uncomfortable, some documents too inconvenient, and 
some truths too disruptive.
  That pattern is not new. It appeared after Reconstruction. It 
appeared during the long struggle against segregation. It also has 
appeared whenever honest history threatened comfortable myths.
  When debates arise over museums, classrooms, archives, monuments, 
historical interpretations, and books that are being banned in schools, 
we should recognize them as part of a much longer American conversation 
about who belongs within the Nation's narrative.
  The stakes extend far beyond any single institution. They concern 
whether future generations inherit a history expansive enough to 
include all who helped build this Republic. The answer should never be 
fewer stories. The answer should always be fuller stories to tell the 
whole truth, for memory is not a scarce resource. Truth is not 
diminished by inclusion.
  Indeed, the opposite is true. Every time America has widened its 
understanding of itself, it has become more faithful to its founding 
ideals.
  Consider the long procession of those who enlarged the American 
promise: those who challenged slavery, those who defended the Union, 
those who fought for women's right to vote, those who demanded women's 
suffrage, those who organized workers, those who secured civil rights, 
those who expanded voting rights, those who insisted that democracy 
belongs to every citizen rather than a privileged few.
  Each generation inherited an imperfect Nation. Each generation left 
behind a better one. That is the true American tradition: not 
perfection but progress, not complacency but correction, not silence 
but an honest conversation, not fear but an abiding faith.
  At 250 years, America does not celebrate because every promise has 
been fulfilled. America celebrates because generation after generation 
refused to surrender those promises. The American story has always 
advanced because citizens possessed enough patriotism to criticize 
injustice and enough hope to repair it.
  Love of country has never required blindness. It has required 
courage. It has required the truth to confront those things that are 
uncomfortable, the courage to confess, the courage to correct, and the 
courage to continue.
  Mr. Speaker, a happy 250th anniversary to our country. May God bless 
the United States.

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