Elijah Cummings

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement).

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek).

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, it certainly is an honor to stand here today and to have Hank Aaron in the audience. I cannot begin to express the thrill it is, I am sure for all of us. When I think of my own life as a little boy in south Baltimore, where we did not have grass fields, but we played on little play lots where vacant houses had been torn down; and where we did not have bats because we could not afford them, but we used broomsticks; and we could not afford baseballs, so we found any kind of ball that we could get our hands on; the fact is that we were following a dream. We were following a dream because of people like Hank Aaron. When we looked at him, we saw us. We had someone that we could look up to and be proud of. And so that although we were sliding onto bases that were made out of a piece of cardboard, oftentimes cutting ourselves because we did not have the grass fields; and although many times we found ourselves frustrated because when we hit a home run, the field was so small we usually broke somebody's window, the fact remains that we were still pursuing a dream. As I listened to my colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), talk, I could not help but think about an interview that was recently had with Mr. Aaron. I felt so proud of him because I realized that he would have traded in all of these compliments that are being made here today if he could see more African Americans and more minorities in every level of baseball. And he talked about that, and I am so glad he has done that. But I also say that Mr. Aaron made it clear that after the baseball playing days are over, and after the curtain goes down, and after the baseball players are unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated and unapplauded, he wants to make sure that they have opportunity. For I am sure it is clear to him that an individual can have all the genetic ability that anyone could want, and all the will that an individual could possibly want, but if that individual does not have the opportunity, they are not going anywhere fast. So we thank him for all that he has done. We thank him for lifting up little boys and giving them something to dream about. We thank him for giving Americans something to cheer about. But we also thank him for showing America what a true American is all about. And we say to him, God bless. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Congress has defined a hate crime as ``any act of violence against a person or property based on the victim's race, color, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability.'' I am here today, Mr. Speaker, to talk about the victims of hate crimes that provide a real-life definition. James Byrd, Jr., an African-American male victim, chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged along a dirt road, murdered by supporters of a white supremacist organization. Thanh Mai, a Vietnamese-American victim who died from a split skull after being taunted and called a ``gook'' and struck to a cement floor. A Latino-American family victimized by arsonists who burned down their home after spray-painting racist messages on the walls. Women in Massachusetts victimized by a sexual batterer who was found to have violated the State's hate crime law for his biased crimes against women. Jewish children victimized by shootings at their community center by a man who had connections to an anti-Semitic organization. And today, we remember Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student who was brutally and savagely beaten, strapped to a fence like an animal and left to die, all because of his sexual orientation. These are only a few of the human faces that fell victim to intolerance, bias and bigotry. In fact, FBI statistics reveal that in 1997, a total of 8,049 biased motivated criminal incidents were reported. Of these incidents, 4,700 were motivated by racial bias, 1,400 by religious bias, 1,100 by sexual-orientation bias, 800 by ethnicity/national origin bias, and 12 by disability bias. The number of incidents reported in my home State of Maryland was 335. As we discuss this issue, I believe that there are two questions our Nation must answer: First, why should we care? I submit to my colleagues today that we should care because our Nation was built on a foundation of democracy and independence for all. Our Declaration of Independence states that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We all take pride in these words, Mr. Speaker, but we all have a duty as American people to recognize this principle applies to all of our Nation's citizens regardless of their race or national origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability status. As cosponsor of the Celebrating One America resolution that this House passed today by unanimous consent sponsored by my good friend from New York (Mr. Rangel), I believe that we should reach out across our differences in ethnicity, race and religion to respect each other and to celebrate in friendship our unity and one America. We must all remember that although we are a melting pot of various cultures, ideals and physical make-ups, we are all one human race. As one 16 year-old recently wrote: ``He prayed, it wasn't my religion; He ate, it wasn't what I ate; He spoke, it wasn't my language; He dressed, it wasn't what I wore; He took my hand, it wasn't the color of mine; But when he laughed, it was how I laugh, and when he cried, it was how I cry.'' The second question our Nation must answer is: How can we put an end to hate violence? The American people must take action. A resolution will require a united and determined partnership of elected officials, law enforcement entities, businesses, community organizations, churches and religious organizations and schools. Congress must also take action. Yes, statistics have shed light on the prevalence of hate crimes in our society, however hate crimes are often under reported. Although we gathered significant information as a result of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, this act makes the reporting of hate crimes by State and local jurisdictions voluntary, leaving gaps in information from various jurisdictions. As such, I call for immediate passage of the Hate Crime Prevention Act, and I ask that we all join together. But most significant, non action translates into silence, and as Martin Luther King stated, We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, an historic American tale teaches us the traits necessary to follow the road to your dreams--a brain, a heart and courage. Today, we must use these traits to knock down the GOP Substitutes that are roadblocks placed on our path toward making the American people's dream of a meaningful patients' bill of rights a reality. As lawmakers, we have a duty to use our brains and hearts, and to have the courage: To knock down GOP roadblocks to expanded access to specialists who have the requisite expertise to treat patients; To knock down GOP roadblocks to ensuring that individuals have access to emergency care, without prior authorization, if a ``prudent lay person'' deems it an emergency; To knock down GOP roadblocks to increased access to prescription drugs through participation of plan physicians and pharmacists in the development of any drug formulary; To knock down roadblocks to prohibiting gag rules that would allow patients to be informed of all of their treatment options; and To knock down roadblocks to holding health plans accountable for decisions about patient treatment that result in injury or death. To knock down roadblocks to allowing provisions, as requested by the Democratic leaders on the bill, in the bipartisan managed care legislation that would ensure that the Social Security Trust Fund is protected by including revenue offsets. These GOP roadblocks have been placed to steer us down an alternate route filled with hidden, poisonous traps and leading to a dead end, with no real access for the 837,000 Marylanders and 44 million nationwide who are uninsured. So, I urge my colleagues--use your brain, listen to your heart, and have the courage to pass the managed care reform the American people have mandated. Knock Down the GOP substitutes and support the Norwood-Dingell bill.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time to me and I want to thank her for all her hard work in this area and the sponsors of this legislation, I thank them too. As lawmakers and human beings we have an obligation to care, to care that every 12 minutes in my home State of Maryland one child is reported abused or neglected. To care that currently 50 out of 1,000 children are reported maltreated, and to care that 2,000 children die each year as a result of abuse or neglect. But our higher duty is to transfer this care into prevention. H.R. 764 does this by providing for increased funding for prevention training, child advocacy and treatment, and increased access by protective service workers to criminal conviction records. The Children's Defense Fund logo, written by a child, states quite succinctly: ``Dear Lord, be good to me; the sea is so wide and my boat is so small.'' Mr. Chairman, if we do not demonstrate that we care, this child and all others abused and neglected across this land will drift away in their small boats and eventually sink and die.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, finally, I think that, as my colleagues know, when we think about the life of Abraham Lincoln, his words of the Gettysburg Address were just so profound; and I just repeat them, just a part of them, at this moment, for I think they still live in our hearts, and he simply said, and this is important, he said, ``It is for the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this Nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.'' With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge all of our colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I, too, want to take a moment to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) for sponsoring this very important legislation. I think it is very important that we take time to recognize those people who came upon this Earth, saw it, saw the problems with it and tried to change it to make it better; and so I thank him, and I want to thank our ranking member of our committee and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), the entire Illinois delegation, and certainly the chairman of the committee and the chairman of the subcommittee. Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us today establishes a bicentennial commission to celebrate the life and accomplishments of this Nation's 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. In many respects Abraham Lincoln was an ordinary man who throughout his life did many extraordinary things. Mr. Lincoln was poor and struggled to educate himself. He encountered numerous business setbacks and challenges. A captain in the Black Hawk War, Lincoln practiced law and spent 8 years in the Illinois legislature. In 1836, Lincoln was elected to Congress and served two terms. Lincoln took 5 years off from politics to focus on his law practice. When he returned to the political arena in 1854, he took an unpopular stance. He opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act which threatened to extend slavery to other States. Lincoln was elected President in 1860 when the United States was no longer united. Believing that cession was illegal, he was prepared to use force to defend the Union and did so. The Civil War began in 1861 and would last 4 years, costing the lives of over 500,000 Americans. On November 16, 1863, in the midst of the war on a battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Lincoln presented to the people his vision for our Nation, conceived in liberty where everyone is created equal. This speech known as the Gettysburg address shaped the destiny of the United States of America, that government of the people and by the people should be for all people regardless of race, or color, or gender. For this, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Lincoln lost his life in the balcony of the Ford's Theatre in 1865 right here in Washington, D.C. The bicentennial commission will recommend to Congress what activities and actions should be taken to celebrate the life of this great man. The commission's recommendations to this body should reflect how a man of humble roots rose to the Presidency of the United States and the diversity and uniqueness of this great Nation. It should send a message to all of our young people that they can, too, start in humble beginnings; but it will not matter where they were born or who they were born to, it is what they do with the life that they have been given. Again, I commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for working with me and the Democratic Illinois delegation to formulate bipartisan language that would expand the membership of the commission to allow the House minority leader and the Senate minority leader to each appoint one Member of Congress to the commission. That is so important because I think that is the way Lincoln would have wanted it. The commission's bipartisan membership will further honor the memory and works of Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained during rollcall vote No. 466. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduced legislation urging the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee and the United States Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp to honor the late great Justice Thurgood Marshall. I'd like to start my tribute with a brief story. This story was told by Marshall during the installation of Wiley Branton as Dean of Howard University's Law School. It clearly exemplifies what Marshall's legacy means to me. You'll see what I mean when you hear the story. This guy took a trip to Las Vegas and did what so many others do--he lost his money, including his fare home. While figuring out what to do, as sometimes happens, he had to go. When he got to the bathroom, he discovered that they had not a nickel or dime but quarter stalls. He didn't have any money, so he was in pretty bad shape. And then a gentleman came by and he told the gentleman his problem. The guy said, ``I'll give you a quarter . . . I don't care if you give it back to me or not, it's no problem.'' He took the quarter and went back into the restroom, and just as he was about to put the quarter in, he realized the door had been left open. So he put the quarter in his pocket and he went in . . . He realized that a quarter wasn't going to get him back to Los Angeles and wouldn't even feed him. So, he put the quarter in a slot machine. And it wouldn't be a story if he didn't hit the jackpot. Then he hit the bigger jackpot . . . and he went to the crap table; he went to the roulette table. He ended up with about ten or fifteen thousand dollars. He went back home and invested in the right stock. He got the right business together. And in pretty short order, about fifteen years, he became the second wealthiest man in the world. He was asked about this story on television and began by saying, ``I am so indebted to that benefactor of mine. That man who made all of this possible. And if he comes forth and proves who he is, I will give him half my wealth in cash. So a man came forth . . . . He said, ``Are you sure you are the one I'm looking for?'' ``Of course, he said, I'm the man who gave you that quarter,'' The millionaire said ``I'm not looking for you. I'm looking for the man who left the door open.'' You see, if he hadn't left the door open, I would have put the quarter in the stall.'' Marshall epitomizes the man who left the door open. We are all millionaires--even billionaires--rich from Marshall's legacy of opening doors for those less fortunate. As we close this era, we must not forget his impact on the events of the 20th Century. Marshall was instrumental in supporting the rights of minorities and immigrants; limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and the right to privacy; and in creating new protections under the law for women, children, prisoners, and the homeless. His legacy has inspired Americans to name educational institutions, Federal Buildings, legal societies, libraries, and numerous academic achievement awards in his honor. It is indeed my honor to recognize a man whose career is a monument to our judiciary system and who has inspired so many to continue his quiet crusade. Marshall was born and raised in the Congressional District I represent--Baltimore City, Maryland--and lived in a home about eight blocks from where I live now. We both attended Howard University and, more significantly, he was once turned away from the law school I attended and graduated from--the University of Maryland. As such, I am especially proud to honor Thurgood Marshall, as I share a common background with him. Through his knowledge, advocacy and devotion to the cause of civil rights, Marshall contributed to the battle fought in the United States courts to eradicate the legacy of slavery. I believe, however, that he should be revered most for his courage and independent judiciary and for breathing life into the text of the Constitution. He worked tirelessly to guarantee all Americans equality and liberty in their individual choices concerning voting, housing, education and travel. In 1954, he argued the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas before the Supreme Court, where racial segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional. He won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, including, cases in which the court declared unconstitutional: A Southern state's exclusion of African-American voters from primary elections (Smith v. Allwright, 1944); state judicial enforcement of racial ``restrictive covenants'' in housing (Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948); and ``separate but equal'' facilities for African-American professionals and graduate students in state universities (Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, both 1950). I honor and praise him for his civil rights and professional achievements within our judicial system. President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961. Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court of the United States and the Senate confirmed the appointment on August 30, 1967, making Marshall the first African-American justice to sit on the Court. Marshall served 23 years on the Supreme Court, retiring on June 27, 1991, at the age of 82. After his death an article in the Washington Afro-American stated, ``We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, but every day we live the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall.''

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) for what he has done. Being the leader that he is, and I was sitting here and listening to him and I listened to our colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), I could just feel the passion and compassion that they all have. I know my other colleagues, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and others who will come before us tonight, have that same kind of passion. I just want to remind the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) of a little story, and I will be very brief, about my visiting a classroom and a teacher is going over the information and she is saying, look, we are going over the things that we tested on Friday. This was a Monday. And I said, why are you going over the matters that you tested on on Friday? The children have gotten their results back and everything. Why are you not moving on? Her response to that was that not everybody got an ``A.'' I want to make sure that everybody gets an ``A.'' I think that is a fitting introduction for a program that was started in Baltimore just recently this past summer where we intensified our summer school program, and we took these 12,000 students who had not made the grade and put them in this program and we discovered some very interesting things. At the end of the summer, at least 50 percent of those children had gotten up to grade level. The other thing that we discovered is that of the schools that they came from, 19 of these schools, because of their overall testing rate, have come up from the bottom to mid-level. It is because of that intensity we had three factors going there. We had smaller classrooms because we had less children. We had good teachers because they picked the best teachers that had time to plan, time to plan, and they set very high standards. So when we think about that scenario that I just brought up, of all the children rising together and no one being left behind, this is what this was all about. They did a little bit more research and they discovered something that was very interesting. What they discovered is that although the children would learn pretty much at the same rate during the school year, when the summer came a lot of times the kids that were in the city and the poorer areas did not have access to books, did not have summer camp opportunities, and did not have various exposures that more affluent students might have. So what they discovered was that because of that summer lack of educational experience that they fell behind. Nobody ever talks about that. So we feel in Baltimore that we are moving into that right direction. But guess what? It takes money to do that. It takes money to do that. I always hear folks talk about, well, money is not what is really needed. Other things are needed. Goodwill is needed, and all of that. Yes, we do need all of those good things but we also need money. Let one person who has their child in private school tell me that money does not make a difference, tell me that it does not make a difference, and they will not convince me. So I just want to raise that issue. I want to thank the gentleman again for what he is doing. We have to do the things that he just talked about. We have to make sure that this legislation is passed and these authorizations are made and this money is appropriated so that no one will be left behind, and I thank the gentleman again.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And do not pay them.

Mr. CUMMINGS

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Civil Service, I have come to this House to support many resolutions. However, as a graduate of an historically black college; as a member of the Board of Regents of Morgan State University, as a father of a freshman at Howard University, and with five such universities and colleges in my home State of Maryland, I am especially pleased to endorse and support historically black colleges and universities. Historically, black colleges and universities should be commended in their success in educating not only the privileged among us, but the disadvantaged among us also. HBCUs have performed a remarkable task. They have educated almost 40 percent of this country's black college graduates, they have graduated 75 percent of black Ph.D.s, 46 percent of all black business executives, 50 percent of black engineers, 80 percent of our Federal judges, and 85 percent of all black doctors. In addition, they have educated an estimated 50 percent of the Nation's black attorneys and 75 percent of the black military officers. The historically black health professional schools have trained an estimated 40 percent of the Nation's black dentists, 50 percent of black pharmacists, and 75 percent of the Nation's black veterinarians. HBCUs can claim these significant success rates because they maintain a philosophy of high scholastic achievement and career goals as well as an enriching social and cultural environment. Further, HBCU faculty are among the most scholared in our Nation's university system; and as role models provide quality educational and practical experience to HBCU students. HBCUs can also be credited with making the higher education financially attainable for those who otherwise would not be able to afford a higher education. This is extremely important because education is the key to the door of economic prosperity. That is why I commend Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, for pledging to spend $1 billion over the next 20 years to give college scholarships to thousands of academically talented, but financially needy minority students across the country. William Gray, III, President of the United Negro College Fund, will help administer the scholarship program. The students in this program and in the HBCU system as a whole not only receive instruction that propels them into blossoming careers but also receive a mandate to serve as leaders in our country and in the world. In essence, these schools have an enduring commitment to educating youth, African-Americans and other people of color, and the disenfranchised, for leadership and service not only to our Nation, but to our global community. As I have said, HBCUs open the door to opportunities and promote leadership and service. It should be noted, however, that these items do not become a reality if students are denied positions, promotions, or the chance to serve in certain capacities because of their race or ethnicity. HBCUs have produced congressional representatives, State legislators, writers, musicians, actors, activists, business leaders, lawyers and doctors, and this resolution recognizes not only historically black colleges and universities, but all of the people of color that they have educated. It also recognizes all of those educators and administrators who have touched children and young people over and over again, and indeed, touched the future. Today, I am honored to pay tribute to these historic and great institutions that have fortified our Nation's heritage and our future in education. Now it gives me great pleasure to yield to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), who has had a history of consistently uplifting historically black colleges and universities not only in his home State of South Carolina, but throughout the country.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) for what he just said, because I think that it sends the word out from this place that historically black colleges and universities have, indeed, made a tremendous contribution. As the gentleman was talking, I could not help but think about my own history with a mother and father who never got out of elementary school because they were denied the very opportunities that I was given. But I will never forget going to Howard University and being embraced by the faculty there. We have not talked a lot about the faculty and the administrators at these schools, but I can tell my colleagues, they are some very, very special people who look at each one of these children, not as a statistic, but as someone that is like their own child. They want to make sure that their children, that their children, and they see them as their children, are raised up to be the very best that they can be. That is not to say that that does not happen at other schools. But I can speak for Howard, and I ask speak for some other historically black colleges and universities. The fact is that the gentleman from California is right. If we look just within the four walls of this chamber and look at all of those people who have been touched over and over again by historically black colleges and universities, it says a lot. When I dropped my daughter off at Howard University a few weeks ago as she began her freshman year as a second-generation college-attending person, I said to her one thing. I said, Jennifer, I am excited about your possibilities. I think that, when we look at historically black colleges and universities, it is exciting, and we become excited about young people's possibilities because we know that they will be embraced. We know that they will be planted in soil that is firm and fertile so that they can grow and be the best that they can be. All of it boils down to opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as I conclude, I first want to thank the other side and the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and certainly the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Civil Service, and our chairman and our ranking member of the committee. It does make me feel good to know that this is a bipartisan effort that we have all joined together to recognize these historically black colleges and universities. The gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) said something that really I think hit home, and that is that a lot of times I think when we look at these historically black colleges and universities, we look at them for the benefit that they have brought to the African- American community. But the fact is that what these institutions have done, they have produced people who have gone out to become leaders and to make our entire society a better society and to make our world a better world. So it is the epitome of what can be done when people are given opportunity. I have often said that one does have all the genetic ability one wants to have. One can have all the will one wants to have. But if one is not given the opportunity, one is not going to go anywhere fast. So with that, I just want to just leave one note with us as I close. Mary McLeod Bethune founded that Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida. She tells about how that college was started. I will be very brief, but I think this is very significant in her own words. She says, ``I went to Daytona Beach, a beautiful little village, shaded by great oaks and giant pines. I found a shabby four-room cottage, for which the owner wanted a rental of $11 a month. My total capital was a dollar and a half, but I talked him into trusting me until the end of the month for the rest. This was in September. A friend let me stay at her home, and I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing.'' Something from nothing. ``I spoke at churches, and the ministers let me take up collections. I buttonholed every woman who would listen to me. ``On October 3, 1904,'' almost 100 years ago, ``I opened the doors of my school, with an enrollment of five . . . girls . . . whose parents paid me fifty cents' weekly tuition. My own child was the only boy in the school. Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve. ``We burned logs and used charred splinters as pencils, and mashed elderberries for ink. I begged strangers for a broom and a lamp.'' I haunted the city dump and the trash piles behind hotels, retrieving discarded kitchenware, cracked dishes, broken chairs, pieces of old lumber. Everything scoured and mended. This was part of the training to salvage, to reconstruct, to make bricks,'' listen to what she said, ``to make bricks without straw. As parents began to gradually leave their children overnight, I had to provide sleeping accommodations. I took corn sacks for mattresses. Then I picked Spanish moss trees, dried and cured it, and used it as a substitute for mattress hair. ``The school expanded fast. In less than 2 years I had 250 pupils.'' She goes on to tell how she built this school almost 100 years ago. The fact is that, since that time, many, many people have graduated from that school and gone on. Their children and their children's children have done well and have graduated. So that is the history, and that is why I guess we see so much excitement from the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and others because these schools have, indeed, played a very significant role. I want to thank again the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and the other side for joining.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it gives me great pleasure at this juncture to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), a lady who also has put on her priority list and made a major priority the lifting up of our historically black colleges and universities.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush), who has also been a leader with regard to issues confronting our educational system throughout our country, but particularly in Illinois.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), as he again is another person who has made historically black colleges and universities a major priority of his. He has synchronized his conscience with his conduct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), who has also been at the forefront of uplifting historically black colleges and universities throughout our country, and certainly doing a great job in her own State of Texas.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, under my reservation, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) to explain the bill.