Recognizing Juneteenth and Slavery Remembrance Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful for the time and the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and views about crucial issues, to share them not only with my colleagues here in Congress but also with the people of our great country.

And still I rise today to talk about Juneteenth. I believe Juneteenth is a very special time in the history of our country, and I would like to say a few words about Juneteenth. I would also like to talk about Slavery Remembrance Day.

For those of you who are tuning in, please know that I will speak about Juneteenth, and I will speak about Slavery Remembrance Day, but I will also speak about a day that occurred before Juneteenth.

As you know, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Prior to signing the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862. April 16, 1862, is the day it was signed.

This is an important piece of legislation because the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act impacted Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act would accord compensation for slaves who were freed--human beings held in bondage, human beings who had been kidnapped, likely, or they may have been born into slavery. Some people were born into slavery and lived their entire lives as slaves and died as slaves.

These human beings, the genesis of which was persons who were kidnapped from the Continent of Africa, for our purposes today, as we talk about slavery here in the United States, these human beings were kidnapped, brought to this country, sold, forced to work, and forced to be separated from their families. Children were sold at the auction block. They went to one plantation, and their mother and father went to another.

This is what slavery was about: kidnapping, rape, murder.

These are true words, words that we don't like to hear because, in this country, we have reviled the enslaved and revered the enslavers.

Let's go back to the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862, which impacted Washington, D.C., as I indicated. This act was to free slaves. It would free them. It brought with it compensation.

A reasonable and prudent person would believe that the compensation would be accorded the slave, the person who had been working at the mercy of a person known as a master. Slaves had masters.

This act, one would assume, would compensate the slave upon the slave being freed. That was not so, my dear friends--not so.

The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 compensated the master. The person who owned the slave received compensation for allowing a person to have the liberty that God has accorded all of his children. Some have been denied the liberty, but it was a birthright for every person ever born, the right to be free.

This act of trying as best as he could--President Lincoln--to free slaves accorded persons who owned them approximately $300. Before the $300 was presented, as it were, there was a slave owner who came and actually appraised slaves. They were considered chattels, property. They were appraised, and owners received this compensation, sort of like compensating the kidnapper who kidnaps a person, compensating this person for the act of kidnapping. Release the person you kidnapped, and you can receive compensation.

It is like the bank robber bringing the ill-gotten gains back to the bank and being rewarded for bringing the ill-gotten gains back after having robbed the bank. It was similar to this, only more horrific, of course, because we are talking about human beings.

We have this situation where persons who were enslaved in Washington, D.C., the Nation's Capital, enslaved right here in Washington, D.C., when they were released, they received the opportunity to fend for themselves. They were released to the winds and the rains and the weather and the elements. They were not given any compensation for their labor, for the crime against humanity.

Slavery was one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity--committed for centuries, I might add. It is a crime against humanity that has never been properly addressed.

Even to this day, people don't want to hear this message. There are people who literally cannot tolerate hearing the message because they have been indoctrinated to believe that the enslaved people somehow were wrong and that the enslavers were heroes.

Well, this didn't work so well, emancipation for consideration to be accorded the enslavers. It didn't work so well. Hence, we find that President Lincoln did, in fact, issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued to free these enslaved persons who were a part of the States that left the Union. They were said to have been given their freedom, but that didn't work too well for the people who were enslaved because in States like Texas, the enslavers didn't really honor the Emancipation Proclamation.

There are some who say, well, they didn't know. Well, they did, but in Texas they chose not to honor it.

Some more than 2 years and a half later, General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, to inform the people of Texas that the persons that were being held--and this was after the end of the Civil War, I might add--the persons that were being held, to inform them that they had been liberated, and to tell the holders, the masters, the enslavers, that these human beings had to be released.

General Gordon Granger was an intelligent man. He did not come by himself. He had the good sense to know that the people of Texas were not likely to find his words with favor; that they were not likely to see and look upon what he was about to do with favor.

General Gordon Granger, understanding that Texans spoke a specific kind of language and, as a result of understanding Texas-speak, General Gordon Granger concluded that he would bring some translators with him, persons who would be understood by Texans. Well, I say persons; they weren't really persons, but these were instrumentalities, if you will, that Texans would understand.

So he brought with him the Colts. He brought with him the Smith & Wessons, and the Winchesters. They spoke a language that Texans understood.

But before General Gordon Granger arrived, a wonderful thing occurred. It is said about a week before he arrived, they sent in the 25th Corps. The 25th Corps consisted of about 1,000 or more persons, and it was the 25th Corps that came in and ran the rebels out of Galveston, chased them to the border of the country, the boundaries, chased them all the way to Mexico. It was the 25th Corps that paved the way for General Gordon Granger to come into Texas and to issue his General Order No. 3.

But here is what history doesn't say enough about. The 25th Corps consisted of Black men. Somehow we don't choose to celebrate these Black men who actually were the liberators, who came in before General Gordon Granger, came into Texas, fought fiercely to liberate the Black people in Texas.

General Gordon Granger appeared with his General Order No. 3, accompanied by a lot of firepower, about 2,000 military personnel with him and, as a result, slaves in Texas were free to work for their masters.

Imagine that. The person that has held you in slavery now becomes your boss--your employer, is the way it was stated--but your boss, your employer. Your slave master is now your employer. Well, that didn't work well for the enslaved persons.

This was followed with a series of laws that caused Black people to have to serve time and become slaves by another name; convict leasing is what it was called because we had these Black codes, these laws, that would require persons to work. If you didn't work you could be arrested, and then you could be leased to a plantation owner.

In Houston, Texas, just outside actually, in Sugarland, there is a grave with about 95 common bodies having been buried in it, called the Sugarland 95. These persons served as slaves under a different title.

But the point is, we had the Emancipation Proclamation. We had the enforcement of it by virtue of General Gordon Granger coming into Galveston, Texas. Then we had other circumstances that were unpleasant for people of color.

All of these things are things that we should take note of. I think we should actually celebrate the persons who came in in the 25th. I plan to introduce a resolution. I plan to introduce a resolution to honor these persons, the 25th Corps. I plan to introduce legislation so that they can be properly honored.

Now, I know that there are people who hear me say these things and sometimes they decide that, well, I think I will do it first. Well, go ahead. I will still have the original.

It is something that we ought to do to celebrate Juneteenth, but also to commemorate the lives of the persons that suffered under slavery, commemorate them and celebrate them, on Juneteenth. Quite frankly, I believe we ought to do that, and I am going to do it. I have supported Juneteenth.

I have supported Al Edwards who is the father of Juneteenth. Al Edwards, a State representative out of Houston, the father of Juneteenth. He was the person who, as a freshman State representative in Texas, managed to get the impossible done, the impossible. We are talking about Texas now.

He managed to get Texans in the State legislature, that would be the House and the Senate, and the Governor to sign a law causing Juneteenth to become a holiday in the State of Texas. It is a miracle.

Al Edwards, Juneteenth. He managed to get it to become the first in the entire country, the first State in the entire country to recognize Juneteenth, June 19, as a holiday. Al Edwards, the father of Juneteenth.

Unfortunately, not a lot has been said about Al being the father of Juneteenth, but I will be filing a resolution in this House honoring him as the father of Juneteenth.

We ought to do these things. We ought to tell the truth. This is history. And obviously, a person who is the very first to file a piece of legislation that becomes law, that eventually permeates and becomes the law in other States, and now, in the United States--but it was Al Edwards. He is the father of Juneteenth. So I will be filing that resolution as well; and other legislation.

I seem to have become the person whose mission in life is to right these wrongs, and I plan to do it with my colleagues, many of whom will support what we are trying to do. I thank them, all of them who sign on to these pieces of legislation.

So we have Juneteenth to celebrate the lives of those who were freed, and we commemorate the day and those who didn't get the opportunity to be liberated because, you see, liberating those who were still alive is a wonderful thing to do. But we still really and truly must commemorate the lives of those who were not alive on June 19, 1865. Their lives have to be remembered and respected.

In this country, we have days of remembrance. We have a day of remembrance for 9/11, a day of remembrance for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this House, just last year, passed a remembrance day for slavery, Slavery Remembrance Day. It was done by this House of Representatives.

I must tell you, Mr. Steny Hoyer--Mr. Steny Hoyer, I will never forget, nor will I let others forget the role that he played. It was Mr. Hoyer that assisted me, or perhaps I ended up assisting him. It was my legislation, but legislation that Mr. Hoyer helped get through this House. He took, as it were, the proverbial bull by the horns, and he helped this Congressperson pass this legislation.

So Mr. Hoyer, wherever you are, I thank you and want you to know that at some point we would like to honor you for what you did to make real Slavery Remembrance Day in the House of Representatives.

The bill did not pass the Senate, but Ms. Warren, the Senator, Senator Warren, had legislation in the Senate to honor the enslaved people. It was to commemorate their lives, as well.

So Slavery Remembrance Day passed the House, and on August 20 of last year, we actually celebrated, commemorated--excuse me--because Slavery Remembrance Day deals with solemnity and commemoration, not celebration. We celebrate on Juneteenth and commemorate.

But Slavery Remembrance Day is for commemoration, not celebration, because we want to commemorate the lives that were lost to slavery, the lives of people who were born into slavery, lived their lives as slaves, many of them, and died as slaves.

I heard somebody repeat that just recently. It is a wonderful thing to hear people repeat that. One of my colleagues did, and I appreciated hearing that being repeated.

But Slavery Remembrance Day is about solemnity, and there is a ceremony that we had reminding us that we must always remember. This ceremony requires that a person talk about the various things that occurred and at some point would say, we must, and those who were in attendance would say, always remember, because we must always remember.

Slavery Remembrance Day, August 20 of last year, the first. We had over 1,000 people show up on short notice. We plan to have it again in Houston, Texas, and in other places, as well. Slavery Remembrance Day, a day for us to commemorate the lives of those who were enslaved in this country for centuries, I might add, centuries. It wasn't just some short period of time.

I think many people assume that slavery occurred for maybe a few months or a few years, perhaps a decade, maybe several decades. But no, my dear friends, it was centuries. Centuries that our country, the country that I love, the country where I say the Pledge of Allegiance, the country where I sing the national anthem, it was in this country, my country that we enslaved people for centuries.

But it is also in this country, my country, where we decline, to this day, to respect the people who were enslaved. We respect the enslavers. We have named schools after the enslavers; there are Lee High Schools across the country.

We respect the enslavers. We name military bases after them; Bragg, Braxton Bragg. We name bases after them, schools after them, but not the enslaved.

Somehow there seems to be this belief that the enslaved persons must have been wrong in some way.

What was their wrong?

What did they do to cause this country to demean them to this day?

I stand here in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America to say that this country has got to respect the lives of those that were sacrificed so that it could have the riches that it has today. The economic foundation that we stand on today was put in place by enslaved people.

They were the economic foundational mothers and fathers of this country and they ought to be at least respected. At minimum they should be respected.

They ought to be respected to the same extent that we have respected the enslavers. This is the second item on the conscience agenda. In 1956, the Congress of the United States of America, honored Confederate soldiers with a Congressional Gold Medal. A Congressional Gold Medal for the enslavers. A Congressional Gold Medal for the persons who fought to keep persons in bondage and disrespect for the enslaved. No dignity was accorded the enslaved.

As a matter of fact, in Texas, there was a movement afoot to rename slavery, to style it as involuntary relocation. Theft of human beings, kidnapping, rape, murder--involuntary relocation. Let's just sanitize it rather than show a person the dignity and respect that they have earned by virtue of the suffering and the pain that we inflicted upon them so that this country could become the great Nation that it is.

How sad it is to know that Members of this House refuse to this day to show them the dignity and respect that human beings deserve after having been enslaved for centuries. The House is a symbol of national shame just as the Richard Russell Office Building is, by the way.

I will say more about that, perhaps, in a moment or two, but we are a symbol of national shame. If anybody thinks that I am going to cease to say this, you are entirely wrong because it is the truth. We ought to do for the enslaved persons what we did for the Confederate soldiers in 1956. We ought to accord a Congressional Gold Medal to them. We should, but we won't.

We have the power to do it. We did it for the Confederate soldiers, but we lack something else that we don't have to do it--the integrity. It takes integrity to do this. Don't have the integrity to do it.

By the way, this circumstance is not something that is unknown to Members because I have circulated the request for the Dear Colleague, the request for persons to sign on and help us acquire the signatures necessary to accord the enslaved persons who built the country, planted the seeds, harvested the crops, fed the Nation, the enslaved persons, accord them a Congressional Gold Medal.

My colleagues are aware so it is nothing new that I am saying, but it takes integrity. It takes being a person of good will to do this. I am sad to say that we cannot get 290 persons of good will. All they have to do is sign a piece of paper and we can then move forward with the process to present a Congressional Gold Medal to the enslaved people. Sign your name. That is all. That is not going to happen. It hasn't happened so far.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic; I am just realistic. It is not happening. I hope that there will be a change in the hearts of Members so that we can do this. I pray for a change in the hearts. It hasn't happened so far. It takes a person with integrity, a person of good will, a person who understands the wrong that has to be corrected, that has to be righted, and we can do it.

I am going to ask my colleagues to do, again, for the enslaved persons what we did in 1956 for the enslavers. We have shown that we revere the enslavers and revile the enslaved. We don't consider them heroes.

I was at the Museum of the Bible just recently with a dear friend here, a name I need not and shall not mention, but we went to the Museum of the Bible located just a stone's throw if you got a really strong arm, but near here. It is about a mile or two away at most.

There in the Museum of the Bible on the wall, they had this huge painting of what we will call liberators, and there was a word ``liberators'' under the painting. They showed the liberators. One of the liberators was Abraham Lincoln. I think Abraham Lincoln qualifies as a liberator, but here is something that will offend a lot of my colleagues to know that one of the liberators at the Museum of the Bible was John Brown.

You see, we have been taught in this country that John Brown was a murderer. John Brown was a liberator. People were enslaved. John Brown sought and fought to liberate people from slavery. He was a liberator. We revere the enslavers, who murdered, killed, kidnapped, and raped. We revere them. We pay tribute to them, but to the persons who were the victims of the kidnapping, murder, rape, we revile them and anybody that tried to help them.

John Brown was a liberator. This is over at the Museum of the Bible. I beg that people would go over there, dear brothers and sisters. We are one race and that is the human race. We are all related. I love you, but you have got to be told the truth.

Go to the museum and see for yourself. Nat Turner was a liberator. Go over and view this for yourselves. Nat Turner's name was not among those. I don't want to mislead you, but he was a liberator, as well.

The point is, we have a duty, a responsibility, an obligation to ourselves, Members, to do justice, to demonstrate that, yes, we have come a long way and we are going to go the rest of the way.

Yes, we have a Juneteenth. We need a slaver remembrance day that has been acknowledged by the Senate, signed into law by the President. This House has already taken one step.

We need that, but we also need to accord dignity and respect to the enslaved people. One way of doing it is with the Congressional Gold Medal to them just as we have done it for the enslavers.

I am of the opinion that we can do it, but it hasn't happened and I have indicated to you that it probably won't. However, I am going to keep hope alive. I will be back to remind us again and again and again. I don't know that the reminder is sufficient. I am going to use prayer, and we will find out if we have 290 people in this House who have the courage and the heart to just sign their names so that we can do for the enslaved what we did for the enslavers.

Dear friends, I love the words of Maya Angelou. She indicates in these words--I might not quote her exactly, but she indicates: ``. . . bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.'' ``. . . the dream and the hope of the slave.''

I stand here in the Congress of the United States of America knowing that somebody some centuries ago prayed for a day when they would receive the dignity and respect God accords all human beings as a birthright. Dignity and respect of liberty and justice for all as we have placed in our Pledge of Allegiance. Dignity and respect, that is all. That is all we are indicating we should have, dignity and respect.

Now, as I bring this to a close, dignity and respect would also require that the name Richard Russell--Richard Russell, dear friends, was a man who fought antilynching legislation, fought civil rights legislation, coauthored the Southern Manifesto. Richard Russell was a self-proclaimed white supremacist. Richard Russell said this is a White man's country.

By the way, there are some Richard Russells alive today. He wasn't the last Richard Russell, but this Richard Russell said this is a White man's country and he wanted to keep it that way.

Now, this Richard Russell has his name on a building, the Senate Russell Office Building. Richard Russell, the white racist, his name is on a building.

Is it asking too much to remove Richard Russell's name from the building? We haven't named any buildings John Brown or Nat Turner. By the way, I am not asking that this building be named John Brown or Nat Turner, but we haven't done it. No taxpayer dollars go toward a building being named John Brown, but we have a building named in honor of Richard Russell, a white supremacist.

I don't think tax dollars ought to support a building that honors a white supremacist. The Senate is a place of shame. The building is a symbol of national shame. Senators can change this. Senators can change this almost overnight. All they have to do is remove his name. The Senate has the power and the authority to take Richard Russell's name off of the Russell Senate Office Building.

They haven't done it. Some tell me that if they did it, we would have to have another name and we can't agree on a name, so they keep the name of the bigot on the building because we don't have another name.

By the way, I haven't said name it Martin Luther King. I haven't said name it Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman. I haven't said name it John Brown, Nat Turner.

Here is what I have said. I have said to remove his name and let the name become what it was before it was the Russell Senate Office Building. It was called the Old Senate Office Building. Revert back to the Old Senate Office Building and take as much time as you like to develop a process, if you like, and then a name, a name that is suitable for the building.

The excuse of ``we can't take it off because we can't agree on a name,'' that is shameful. Every Senator over there ought to be ashamed.

I don't go into the Russell Senate Office Building. I am a one-person protest. I am not going to demean myself. I have enough respect and dignity for myself not to go into a building named in honor of a racist and bigot. I am not going to do it. Those who do it, it is their choice. If you don't have to, you are disrespecting yourself.

I have written a letter to various organizations when I was invited to come and speak over in the building for various reasons. I have written a letter, and I am sending it to all the human rights and civil rights organizations, letting them know that I am a one-person protest and that I won't be going into the Russell Senate Office Building, except to protest. There is an exception. I will go in to protest.

I will be going in to protest, so I am giving everybody fair notice. There will be protestation at the Russell Senate Office Building. I won't say when, but I will be going to protest.

I am hopeful that we can take the name of Richard Russell off the Senate office building paid for in tax dollars. It is easy to do but difficult if you don't have the courage, if you don't have the integrity, and if you don't have the heart to do what is right.

Here is what I suspect will happen at some point. At some point, my brothers and sisters in the Senate will find a way to do this and ignore the fact that I have been standing in this House appealing to them to do it.

You see, people are written out of history who make these kinds of demands. They are written out of history because it can never be said that a person of African ancestry had the courage to do this and then it was done. That would mean, then, that there are other things that people of color might have the courage to do and to get done in a similar fashion.

They will find a clever way to get it done. The name will change, and we will just go on as though none of this ever happened.

I just pray that the record will show that someone came to this well and stood for justice. Just as we like to record the history of all the things that people do, let it be known that at least one person came here and asked that we take that name off of that building.

It will happen. It is just a matter of time. At some point, there will be people who are going to coalesce around this, and the Senate will have to do it. It is shameful that they haven't done it, but they will have to do it.

Maybe not while I am here, but at some point, this Congress is going to award a Congressional Gold Medal to those persons who suffered slavery. Congress will do it, but they have to find a way to do it so that it doesn't look like they were forced to do it, that they were forced by a person, a Black man who had the courage to come and stand in the well and say this is something that we must do.

They can't let it seem as though this person did this, so they will find a way to do these things, and it will be as though none of this ever happened.

Do you know what? The good news is that it will happen. Maybe not in time for me to see it, but it will happen.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that I love my country. In spite of the way my country has behaved, I still love it. It is sort of like a mother or father loving children. Sometimes children don't behave properly, but you don't cease to love them. You want to correct them. I come here to correct my country and help us to do the right thing. Actually, more important than that, Mr. Speaker, is to do the righteous thing. I love my country, and I pray that my country will do the righteous thing.

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