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BLACK HISTORY MONTH
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush) for 5 minutes.
Ms. BUSH. Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise today because, if America's students are not taught the truth in school, we can at least make the floor of the House of Representatives their classroom.
My name is Cori Bush. But Bush was not the name that my paternal ancestors in Nigeria carried. Bush was the last name forced upon them by their slave masters right here in America. My maternal ancestors carried the last name Blakney, forced upon them by their slave masters in Pageland, South Carolina.
Our Black ancestors were kidnapped--stolen--from their homelands. They were the 12 million Africans who were shackled, branded, and packed into the bowels of slave ships during what is known as the Middle Passage where 2 million Africans died. Poor ventilation, burning heat, no room to stand or room to turn their bodies, forced to lay in their own feces and urine, they were starved, dehydrated, poisoned, and beaten.
Those who survived the Middle Passage survived only to be brought onto these shores, bought and sold at auctions like the goods their forced labor was producing.
These auctions launched a longstanding practice in America in which White folks--including White women--scrutinize and violate the bodies of Black people--especially Black women.
We are going to tell the truth today. Black adults and Black children were enslaved and forced to endure being tormented, being tortured, and being raped by White slave owners on slave ships and on the plantations.
Our ancestors tried to escape the bondage of slavery just to be hunted, captured, imprisoned, and executed via slave patrols and convict leasing--those institutions whose primary focus was to regulate, exploit, and control Black bodies.
More than 1,700 Congressmen once enslaved Black people. Those 1,700 people who routinely cast votes cultivating, conserving, and codifying White supremacy did not view Black people as human beings. Our own Presidents owned, sold, and enslaved Black people.
The image behind me is the truth of our country's history that our students are denied. This is what a lynching in America looked like.
What we must remember is that for every Black person they hung from a tree, dozens of White people came to celebrate.
When our students don't learn about these lynchings in school, it is not just to deny us our justice, it is because racist policymakers don't want White children to know that that may be great-grandpa smiling in the picture and pointing at our ancestors dangling like strange fruit.
This is the truth about our country that too many racist lawmakers want to prevent our students from learning.
So to young White people across our country: this is your history. The atrocities perpetuated against Black people for generations were committed by your ancestors--not all of you, but many of you.
So you have to know this is American history.
So what will you do to help repair the damage?
What will you do to help us achieve reparations for the harm done?
And if your history books do not teach this history, then question the book. Talk to your school district. Tell them that we don't want a whitewashed history. We want and deserve the truth.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair, not to a perceived viewing audience.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 25
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
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