A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Celebrating Black History Month.
WHEREAS, the accomplishments of African Americans throughout this country's history have been abundant, significant, and far-reaching, and have helped shape this country into an exceptional nation of unprecedented opportunity and achievement; and
WHEREAS, the countless contributions by African Americans have been varied and diverse, as well as indispensable and inspiring, and have influenced politics, religion, education, science, research, business, entrepreneurship, and the military, among others; and
WHEREAS, many important and indisputable facts from our history have been underemphasized and overlooked; and
WHEREAS, the first Africans were originally brought to North America unwillingly, having been conquered, captured, and sold by other African tribes and Muslim slave-catchers to the Dutch and other traders journeying to America; and
WHEREAS, the first African slaves in North America were brought by the Spanish to their colonies in the Florida region in 1565; and
WHEREAS, the first African slaves in a North American English colony arrived in Virginia in 1619, but became indentured servants instead of remaining slaves, earning their freedom, with the state giving them their own land after a set number of years; and
WHEREAS, the first documented occasion of legalized black chattel slavery in the English colonies of America did not occur until 1651, in Virginia, when free African American, Anthony Johnson, sued and won the right to own another African American for life; and
WHEREAS, a slave ship arrived in 1646, in New England, whereupon the slaves were freed, and the slave owners imprisoned, being charged with the capital crime of man-stealing; and
WHEREAS, the two English colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts began a dual track for African Americans, with much slavery and oppression in the South and much freedom and opportunity in the North, including the early right to vote and hold office; and
WHEREAS, African Americans contributed much to this country's rich colonial history, including political officials such as Mathias DeSouza, who was elected to office in 1641; Wentworth Cheswill, who was elected to office in 1768 and reelected for the next 49 years to eight different political offices; and Thomas Hercules, who was elected to office in 1793; and
WHEREAS, one of the first casualties of the movement for Independence was black patriot Crispus Attucks, who was shot by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre; and
WHEREAS, notable black soldiers in the War for Independence included James Armistead, Jack Sisson, Prince Whipple, Peter Salem, Salem Poor, Lemuel Haynes, Richard Allen, Prince Estabrook, Crispus Attucks, Jordan Freeman, Oliver Cromwell, Brister Baker, and numerous others; and
WHEREAS, during the War for Independence, blacks and whites served together, in integrated units, in virtually every battle of the war and African Americans routinely reenlisted, voluntarily serving an average of nine times longer than white soldiers; and
WHEREAS, influential black colonial clergymen included Richard Allen, the founder of this country's first black denomination; Absalom Jones, the first black clergyman to be ordained in a major Christian denomination; Lemuel Haynes, the first black American to receive a degree in higher education and to have a sermon published, while pastoring multiple white churches; and Harry Hoosier, credited as being the namesake of the Hoosier state - Indiana; and
WHEREAS, African Americans also contributed to this country's history, well beyond the colonial era and the country's founding; and
WHEREAS, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, there were many distinguished African American entrepreneurs and business leaders, including Paul Cuffe, Stephen Smith, Clara Brown, Robert Gordon, Bridget Mason, and Charles Patterson; and
WHEREAS, notable 19th century black soldiers included Robert Smalls, the first black United States naval captain and Major General in the South Carolina militia and William Carney, Christian Fleetwood, Alfred Hilton, Charles Veal, and Alexander Kelly five of the seven black Americans who received the medal of honor for protecting this country's flag with many others receiving that medal for other acts of courage; and
WHEREAS, in the 19th century, influential African Americans included federal political leaders such as Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black United States Senator; Blanche Kelso Bruce, the second black United States Senator and the first black man to be nominated for Vice President and to have his name printed on federal currency; and Joseph Hayne Rainey, the first black man to preside over the United States House of Representatives; and
WHEREAS, distinguished black ministers and civil rights advocates who should be honored, include Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth, and more recently Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; and
WHEREAS, many critics today wrongly assert that the United States Constitution was a pro-slavery document, pointing to the three-fifths clause and claiming the Constitution states that blacks are only three-fifths of a person; and
WHEREAS, famous black clergyman and abolitionist Frederick Douglass had been told this and accepted that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, until he read it for himself, together with the writings of those men who actually wrote the document; and
WHEREAS, after personal examination, Frederick Douglass concluded that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document and declared, "I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it" and that, to the contrary, "it will be found to contain certain principles and purposes entirely hostile to the existence of slavery"; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass understood that the three-fifths clause dealt only with representation and not the worth of any individual, regardless of color; and
WHEREAS, many today overlook or ignore this country's positive record on race and slavery; and
WHEREAS, by 1804, every northern state had passed laws for the abolition of slavery; and
WHEREAS, in 1807, the United States became the first nation in the world to sign a law banning the slave trade, with Great Britain doing so shortly thereafter; and while the British law went into effect two months before that of the United States, it contained major loopholes, which the United States law did not, causing the United States to be the first nation in the world with an immediate ban on the slave trade; and
WHEREAS, beginning in 1819, the United States dispatched and maintained a naval presence off the coast of Africa to prevent other nations from taking slaves out of Africa, and United States naval vessels intercepted and turned back numerous ships from other countries, continuing this effort until the outbreak of the Civil War, when those ships were called home to fight the southern slave-holding Confederacy; and
WHEREAS, the United States was not a major world leader in the African slave trade; for of the 12.7 million Africans involuntarily removed from Africa and sold into slavery from 1501-1875, 46 percent were made slaves in Portuguese holdings, 26 percent in English holdings, 11 percent in French holdings, 8 percent in Spanish holdings, and 4 percent in Dutch holdings, while only 2.4 percent were brought to the United States; and
WHEREAS, of the nearly 200 nations in the world today, 94 still have not criminalized slavery or the slave trade; and
WHEREAS, there are currently 40 million slaves in the world three times more than were taken in the entire 400 year history of the transatlantic African slave trade; and
WHEREAS, the United States is ranked as one of the top nations in the world when it comes to fighting slavery, the slave trade, and human trafficking; and
WHEREAS, despite early progress and work in advancing racial freedom and equality, those issues have become more political and polarizing, with many leaders directly opposing freedom and racial equality; and
WHEREAS, one example is a 1789 law that prohibited slavery in the federal territories but was reversed, in 1820, when Democrats passed the Missouri Compromise; and
WHEREAS, in 1850, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, denying even minimal constitutional protections to accused slaves and allowing slave-hunters to take blacks from the North to slavery in the South; and
WHEREAS, in 1854, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, legally allowing the extension of slavery all the way north, to Canada, through many formerly anti-slavery territories; and
WHEREAS, in May of 1854, following the passage of pro-slavery laws in Congress, a number of anti-slavery Democrats joined with anti-slavery members of Congress to form the Republican Party, to fight slavery and secure equal civil rights for black Americans; and
WHEREAS, in 1856, Republicans issued their first national platform, affirming the call, not only for the end of slavery, but also for equality and civil rights; and
WHEREAS, in 1857, the majority Democrat United States Supreme Court delivered the Dred Scott decision, declaring that blacks were not persons, but property, that blacks had no rights, and that Congress could not ban slavery anywhere; and
WHEREAS, the 1860 Democrat platform openly supported slavery and Democrats gave out a copy of the Dred Scott decision, along with their platform, to show they agreed with that Court's decision; and
WHEREAS, in the 1860 presidential election, anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln represented the Republican Party, and the national Democrat vote was split between three pro-slavery candidates Stephen Douglas of Illinois, John Breckenridge of Kentucky, and John Bell of Tennessee with Lincoln receiving 39 percent of the national popular vote and 60 percent of the electoral votes, and the pro-slavery Democrats receiving 61 percent of the popular vote and 40 percent of the electoral votes, after which Abraham Lincoln became president; and
WHEREAS, Republicans not only won the presidency but also gained control of the United States House and Senate, after the majority of pro-slavery Democrats resigned and seceded, and they began passing anti-slavery and civil rights laws; and
WHEREAS, in 1865, when the 13th Amendment was passed to abolish slavery, only 21 percent of Democrats in Congress voted to end slavery; and
WHEREAS, on the same day that Congress abolished slavery, Republican Senator Charles Sumner took black American attorney and teacher, dentist, and physician John Rock to the United States Supreme Court, where he became the first black American to be admitted to the Supreme Court bar; and
WHEREAS, after the passage of the 13th Amendment, Republicans asked black pastor, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, a former slave, to preach a sermon commemorating the end of slavery at the church service held every Sunday in the Hall of the House of Representatives inside the United States Capitol; and
WHEREAS, the Rev. Garnet preached his sermon on Sunday, February 12, 1865, recalling: "What is slavery? Too well do I know what it is . . . . I was born among the cherished institutions of slavery. My earliest recollections of parents, friends, and the home of my childhood are clouded with its wrongs. The first sight that met my eyes was my Christian mother enslaved"; and
WHEREAS, by this sermon, Garnet became the first black American officially to speak in the halls of Congress; and
WHEREAS, the 14th Amendment securing civil rights for black Americans was passed, without a single Democrat vote of support, and the 15th Amendment securing voting rights was then passed, also without Democrat support; and
WHEREAS, when black Americans in southern states received civil rights, including the right to vote, they promptly elected state Republican Legislatures across the South, which moved quickly to protect voting rights for African Americans, prohibit segregation, and open public education, public transportation, and state police, schools, and other institutions to black Americans; and
WHEREAS, black Americans became active legislators in the South, with the first 42 blacks elected to the state Legislature in Texas being Republicans, along with the first 127 black legislators in Louisiana, the first 103 in Alabama, the first 112 in Mississippi, the first 190 in South Carolina, the first 46 in Virginia, the first 30 in Florida, the first 30 in North Carolina, the first 41 in Georgia; and
WHEREAS, the first 23 black legislators elected to the United States Congress were Republicans, and were largely from the southern Democrat states, where 13 of them had been slaves; and
WHEREAS, in 1866, Democrats began to retaliate against black advancement in the southern states, not only by the manipulation of election laws in the South, but also by physical violence as in Louisiana, where 40 black and 20 white Republicans were killed, with 150 more wounded, at the Republican Party convention; and
WHEREAS, in 1866, Democrats openly acknowledged in congressional hearings that they formed the Ku Klux Klan, as a political affiliate, to help regain Democrat control in elections; and
WHEREAS, the national leader and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was a prominent Democrat leader and former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest an honored member of the Democrat National Convention of 1868; and
WHEREAS, the Ku Klux Klan reign of violence often targeted and lynched not only blacks, but also white Republicans, with 3,345 blacks and 1,297 whites being lynched between 1882 and 1964; and
WHEREAS, by 1875, Republicans had successfully passed almost two dozen civil rights laws to secure equality and full civil rights; and
WHEREAS, in 1876, Democrats regained control of the United States House and not only successfully blocked further civil rights progress, but began repealing existing civil rights laws so that it would be another 89 years before the next federal civil rights law was passed; and
WHEREAS, Democrats also regained control of southern state