Burgess Owens: “today we passed the Church Arson Prevention Act, and I think practically every Member present voted for that act. It is…”

“today we passed the Church Arson Prevention Act, and I think practically every Member present voted for that act. It is to the credit of this Congress that this is a bipartisan effort to deal with a heinous set of crimes and to let the message go forth from the leadership of this Nation that we will not tolerate such acts. There is a disease out there that every now and then manifests itself, and the leadership of the Government has the duty and obligation to let it be known that we will not encourage it, we will not condone it, and we will do everything possible to make certain that those who are guilty are punished. I want to talk a little bit about the burning of black churches in the south, but I want to talk about four other things that also relate to it, although it is not obvious how closely related they are on the surface. I want to talk about the recent controversy surrounding the standardization of a national curriculum for history, especially for American history. I also want to talk about the controversy surrounding the invitation to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to speak at a Prince George's County school and what happened as a result of that controversy. I want to talk about a man named Kenneth Johnson, who objected to Justice Thomas speaking there. Mr. Johnson is a school board member, and he felt that there was some problems there, and I think Mr. Johnson's allegations and his concerns deserve to be looked at more closely.”