Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentlewoman from Texas, the esteemed Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, for her yielding and her leadership in anchoring this Special Order hour along with our colleague, Congressman Torres. I commend both of them for the leadership that they provide in bringing our voice as the Congressional Black Caucus to the floor of the House of Representatives during this Special Order hour. Madam Speaker, I thank our Chairwoman Joyce Beatty for recognizing just how important it is for the Congressional Black Caucus to speak on so many important issues. Today is the commemoration for the Juneteenth holiday that we now recognize and to commemorate June 19th, 1865, when some of the last enslaved people in the United States learned that they were free. But as my colleagues have spoken about here tonight, more than 2 years before the first Juneteenth, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing enslaved people in Confederate States. Instead, though, slave owners hid the news of emancipation and kept free people in captivity, but on Juneteenth the truth set them free. And Juneteenth is now a celebration, a commemoration of the power of that truth. A lot of people want to hide our history, they want to not speak about the truth of our history, but there are truths, like emancipation, that merit us speaking and celebrating and commemorating, as we are doing.…”