Jennifer McClellan

Ms. McCLELLAN

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Ms. McCLELLAN

Ms. McCLELLAN. We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, as I mentioned, the history of our country is how we the people includes everyone. It is how to reconcile the ideals upon which this country was founded as articulated so beautifully by Thomas Jefferson, with the reality upon which this country was founded, as we grapple with the fact that Thomas Jefferson in writing that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness did not even include in that sentiment the human beings who labored, enslaved by him treated as property, including his own children. I think of our country as a family, the American people as a family. Like any family, you cannot heal from family trauma if you don't talk about it, if you don't acknowledge it, if you don't acknowledge the pain of it, if you don't forgive and move forward. Unfortunately, in our country, too often when we get close to that moment, when we get close to that healing moment, when we get close to that ideal becoming true for everyone, there is a backlash. Every time in American history that we have begun to address the impact of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow on African Americans, there is a backlash. The first one was the backlash to reconstruction. During reconstruction, when formerly enslaved men gained the right to vote after gaining citizenship, after being promised equal protection under the law, after electing members of their community to Congress--over 22--and after electing hundreds from their communities to State legislatures across the country, gaining social, political, and economic power, working together, in some cases, with White communities--like the Readjuster Party in Virginia, which worked together to create what was, at the time considered--with a small p-- the most progressive Constitution that Virginia ever had, where it finally promised, for the first time, every child in Virginia the right to a free public education. And the old power structure said: We have got to break that up. To break up that coalition, the backlash used three things: propaganda, the lie of White supremacy, the lie of the Lost Cause narrative, that began to ignore what was actually said in articles of succession and say: Well, no, the war was about something else. It wasn't about slavery. It began to use the lie of the Lost Cause narrative in iconography that said we need to put Black people back in their place by putting these gigantic monuments in front of the courthouse that says: Justice for all, except for you. Then when they didn't get the message from the propaganda, they said: We are going to use violence through racial terror lynching, and 6,500 people, Black people, were murdered by White mobs through racial terror lynchings from 1865 through the 1960s--1968. Because if they don't get the message of the propaganda, we are going to use violence. We are going to use a mob that will start a race riot when people in Louisiana are trying to register to vote. We are going to use voter suppression because in a country--in a government of the people, of the people, for the people, the government will reflect the perspective and, therefore, meet the needs of the people who participate. If we can keep certain people from participating, we don't have to meet their needs. So whether it was the literacy test that my great-grandfather had to take in Alabama in 1901, the character requirement he had to meet by finding three White men to vouch for his character to register to vote; whether it was the poll tax that my father and my grandfather had to pay in Tennessee; or voter intimidation and threats, the voter suppression is always part of the backlash. We are in that backlash now, but the difference is the people who lived through Jim Crow are dying off. There is a concerted effort to keep their stories out of our schools, out of our public places, out of our museums through an executive order. Yet, history is a funny thing. Those stories, just like through all the traditions that were handed down generation to generation, we will continue to tell these stories, no matter how many executive orders are written. No matter how many orders the National Park Service is given to erase the names of people enslaved who worked at the President's house in Philadelphia, we will tell their story. We will work to continue to eliminate the impact of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow, even though we have an administration that wants to dismantle the progress we made in doing so, because that impact didn't go away with the wave of a magic wand with the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Now that we see efforts to unwind it, we are going to fight back. I will close with this: I can't help but think of John Lewis. We are also going to come up on the anniversary of his passing. In his final words to us, John Lewis said: ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to build what we call the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.'' My parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents fought for that beloved community, and they used the ballot to elect people who would help to build that beloved community. Now, the Supreme Court has basically said that the medicine for the cancer of racism has worked, so let's get rid of the medicine, that we don't need it anymore, but the cancer is still there. We are going to fight back as the Congressional Black Caucus. We will not let our voices be silenced. We will not let our history be erased. We will not let our votes be suppressed. We will continue to fight until every American has the right, unencumbered by this government, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When we say in the Pledge of Allegiance, ``liberty and justice for all,'' it finally becomes true. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey).

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour commemorating Juneteenth. Next week, the Nation will pause to celebrate Juneteenth. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, which finally freed more than 250,000 enslaved people in that State. For while the Emancipation Proclamation officially went into effect on July 1, 1863, emancipating those enslaved in the rebelling States of the Confederacy, it took over 2\1/2\ years for the news to reach the western-most Confederate State of Texas. Broadly, Juneteenth marks Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, or Black Independence Day. Juneteenth is considered the longest-running African-American holiday. While communities have celebrated the date since 1866, it was not officially signed into United States law as a Federal holiday until June of 2021. Juneteenth symbolizes that, unlike what we were taught in our schoolbooks, emancipation was not a moment. It was a movement. It was a movement that included acts of resistance, rebellion, and self- liberation since Africans first arrived on American soil in bondage. As the first Black woman serving in this body from the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am all too familiar with this story, for the Commonwealth is both the birthplace of American democracy and the birthplace of the American slave trail. In July of 1619, the House of Burgesses met at Jamestown, bringing the concept of a representative democracy modeled after the English Parliament that evolved into the modern-day bicameral legislature. The House of Burgesses continues to operate today as the Virginia House of Delegates. A month later, in August of 1619, a Dutch privateer arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia, containing, ``20 and odd'' Africans that John Rolfe recorded were traded for provisions. They were originally captured by Portuguese slavers in West Central Africa, known today as Angola. While slavery was not officially acknowledged in the laws of Virginia until 1661, there is no doubt that the first Africans aboard the White Lion were treated as slaves, assigned heavy labor, and treated as property by the colonial elite. I am quite cognizant that 250 years ago when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and said that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, he did not include the nearly half a million enslaved men, women, and children or, indeed, any women at all in the Thirteen Colonies. He did not include those enslaved at his beloved Monticello, including his own children. I am quite clear that when James Madison wrote the Virginia Plan that formed the foundation for a government by, of, and for we the people in order to form a more perfect Union, he did not include the over 300 enslaved people who lived and labored at his Montpelier estate under three generations of his family. The U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, considered enslaved individuals only three-fifths of a person for the purpose of how many people would serve in this body and for taxation. The States that came together to create that more perfect Union treated those people as property. Since 1789, the story of America has been one of each generation trying to reconcile the ideals upon which we were founded with the reality and making the ideals true for us all. Despite what some would have you believe, slavery literally tore this country apart, for as then Abraham Lincoln predicted in 1858, a house divided against itself cannot stand. He said this government could not endure permanently, half slave and half free. While he did not expect the Union to be dissolved, and he did not expect the house to fall, he expected it would cease to be divided. It took a war to do that. Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and South Carolina became the first State to secede from the Union, its 1860 Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina explicitly and repeatedly states that the preservation and expansion of slavery was the primary reason for leaving the Union. Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas likewise formally published Declarations of Causes that explicitly cited the preservation and expansion of slavery as their primary reason for seceding. States like Alabama and Virginia passed shorter ordinances of secession directly citing the hostile attitudes of the Federal Government toward their ``domestic institutions'' and the election of a sectional party based on antislavery platforms. It was clear they were seceding because of slavery, so that they could keep it. After the war, Reconstruction sought to bind the country's wounds and expand the promise of its founding to the formerly enslaved, and Congress expanded suffrage to Black citizens, used Federal troops to vigorously defend it in response to a violent backlash across the South. Congress passed three Reconstruction amendments designed to guarantee equal, civil, and legal rights to formerly enslaved Americans. All three granted Congress the power to enforce their provisions through legislation: the 13th Amendment finally abolishing slavery in the United States; the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and prohibited any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizenship, applied due process of laws to the States, and provided equal protection under the law. It also provided for the reduction of representation in the House of Representatives of any State that disenfranchised any male citizens--and they meant male--over 21 years of age in Federal elections, except for participation in a rebellion or other crime; and the 15th Amendment prohibited the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Yet, even with these amendments, Southern States resisted, resorting to paramilitary organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black citizens for daring to seek to vote, run for office, serve on juries, own property, open businesses, live in the wrong neighborhood, go to the wrong school, eventually drink from the wrong water fountain. In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed the Enforcement Acts to allow the Federal Government to intervene when States or individuals infringed upon the rights provided in the 14th and 15th Amendments, and as a result Black men gained political power across the South. In 1870, Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black Members of Congress. A total of 22 Black men served in Congress between 1870 and 1901, including my predecessor, John Mercer Langston of Virginia's Fourth District, in 1890. The political, social, and economic power gained by Blacks across the South during Reconstruction then faced a violent backlash, as the KKK and other groups began a reign of terror that relied extensively on lynchings. To resolve the deadlocked Presidential election of 1876, the Compromise of 1877 brought Reconstruction to an end, the Federal Government removed its troops from the South, and widespread violence, propaganda, and voter suppression began. In the final year of Reconstruction, the unraveling of Federal protection and voting rights began when the Supreme Court issued two opinions that gutted the Enforcement Act--United States v. Cruikshank and the United States v. Reese. Once Democrats regained control and Reconstruction ended in the South, Congress lost interest in Federal intervention and State disenfranchisement efforts. Then the long arc toward moral justice began again. When President Harry Truman integrated the Army and when the civil rights movement began to gain ground, those Southern Democrats fled the Democratic Party and became Republicans. Today, we see a very similar backlash to the backlash to progress that came after Reconstruction. With the first Court case gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Shelby decision, and now the Callais decision, we see a rollback of the Federal Government protecting voting rights. We see a weaponization of the very tools used to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was open to all roll back the progress made in civil rights and equal protection under the law. We see an administration that wants to tell one side of the story that I just told that doesn't want anything uncomfortable to be taught in our schools, that doesn't want anything about slavery mentioned in our public spaces, in our museums, or in our curriculum, that doesn't want that backlash taught. Juneteenth gives us two opportunities: One, to celebrate the extraordinary resilience of Black Americans who came here through the Middle Passage and bondage, and today are at historic high numbers in political leadership and representation. However, it also gives us an opportunity to acknowledge how we got here--the good, the bad, and the ugly; to recognize the pattern, to recognize the backlash to progress that always includes propaganda, whether it is the lie of white supremacy or the lie of stolen elections; violence, whether it is racial terror, lynchings, or insurrectionists showing up trying to stop for the second time in American history the results of an election they didn't like, or voter suppression, like a modern-day poll tax that we see in the SAVE Act. We see the same backlash now, but we as the Congressional Black Caucus are here to say: We are not going back, we will fight the backlash, and we will continue the progress until when we say in our Pledge of Allegiance ``liberty and justice for all,'' it means all. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Ms. McCLELLAN

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Dr. Emmanuel O. Omojokun on the occasion of his retirement after 37 years of extraordinary service to Virginia State University and the Commonwealth of Virginia. For nearly four decades, Dr. Omojokun has exemplified the very best of public higher education through his leadership, scholarship, innovation, and unwavering commitment to student success. As Dean of the Reginald F. Lewis College of Business and Professor of Computer Information Systems, he has helped shape generations of students and has left an indelible mark on Virginia State University's academic and technological advancement. Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Omojokun held numerous leadership positions at Virginia State University, including Dean, Associate Dean, Department Chair, Director of the Institute on Computing, and faculty member. In each role, he demonstrated a steadfast commitment to academic excellence, institutional growth, and workforce development. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Omojokun established Virginia State University's Computer Science program in the 1990s, developing the curriculum, securing institutional approval, and personally teaching all of the courses offered during the program's inaugural year. He also spearheaded the development of the University's MBA program and created the Cyber Security and Forensics minor, helping prepare students for careers in some of the Nation's fastest-growing and most critical industries. Dr. Omojokun also played a transformative role in modernizing the University's technological infrastructure. He designed the first computer network on the VSU campus, helped lead the installation of the University's first fiber optic backbone, and played a central role in bringing internet connectivity to the institution. His work strengthened both the University's operational capacity and its ability to prepare students for the demands of an increasingly digital world. In addition to his academic leadership, Dr. Omojokun's scholarship and research efforts helped secure more than $25 million in funded proposals and research activity involving the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and other federal partners. His contributions have advanced research, expanded educational opportunities, and strengthened partnerships between higher education, government, and industry. Just as importantly, Dr. Omojokun has been a dedicated mentor, colleague, and servant leader. His guidance and support have helped countless faculty and students succeed, and his leadership has strengthened Virginia State University for generations to come. Dr. Omojokun's career reflects the highest ideals of public service, higher education, and innovation. His legacy will endure not only through the programs and systems he helped build, but through the thousands of students, faculty, and community members whose lives he impacted. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Dr. Omojokun on his retirement and in thanking him for his remarkable service to Virginia State University and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Ms. McCLELLAN

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I took my oath of office 3 years ago on the Bible that my father kept his poll tax receipt in that he paid when he turned old enough to vote in Tennessee. In my office is a book written by my great-grandfather. He tells a story. My great-grandfather was born on the plantation where his parents were enslaved. He went to register to vote in 1902 in Alabama. He was given a literacy test. He got all the questions right. The registrar turned to his assistant and said: ``I need more questions because this nigger got them all right.'' He was on a list of people not to register to vote because he organized Blacks in the community. Then he was told he had to find three White men to vouch for his character, and he did it. Today, just like my great-grandfather, just like my father, I and the Congressional Black Caucus will fight any obstacle put in our way to ensure that we participate in this government by, of, and for the people. We won't take this sitting down. The Supreme Court may have dealt us a devastating blow, but we are going to get up, just like John Lewis got up after he was beaten in the head from marching across the bridge in Selma for the right to vote. This is not the end of the war. This is only the beginning where we will ensure that liberty and justice for all means all; that a government by, of, and for the people includes all the people. We will not be silenced. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Menefee).

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey), representing the Fourth District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Foushee), the Fourth District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Brown), the 11th District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), the Seventh District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly), the Second District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) from Georgia's Fourth District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus to anchor this Special Order hour. General Leave

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus to address another blight on American history. Mr. Speaker, 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence ``that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Yet, Mr. Jefferson did not include the nearly half a million enslaved men, women, and children in the Thirteen Colonies, including at his beloved Monticello. Eleven years later, the Constitution of the United States created a government by, of, and for we the people in order to form a more perfect Union, yet it considered the enslaved people three-fifths of a person for purposes of House of Representatives apportionment and taxation and excluded indigenous people altogether. Since 1789, the history of our country has been one of each generation attempting to make true for all Americans the promise of American democracy embedded in our founding documents by expanding suffrage beyond White, landowning men. It is a story of cyclical trauma. As the Civil War tore this country apart, Reconstruction sought to bind its wounds, and a violent backlash of white supremacy erased gains made by formerly enslaved men. In the wake of the Civil War, Congress passed the Reconstruction amendments to end slavery, guarantee equal civil, legal, and voting rights to formerly enslaved Americans, and all three granted Congress the power to enforce their provisions. Even with these amendments, southern States resisted, resorting to organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black citizens for seeking to vote, run for office, and serve on juries. Congress passed the Enforcement Acts to allow the Federal Government to intervene. As a result, Black men gained political power across the South for the first time. In 1870, Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black Members of Congress. A total of 22 Black men served in Congress between 1870 and 1901, including John Mercer Langston, who served in Virginia's Fourth Congressional District, a seat that I now proudly serve as the first Black woman elected from the Commonwealth of Virginia. The political, social, and economic power gained by Blacks across the South during Reconstruction faced a violent backlash as the KKK and other similar organizations began a reign of terror across the South. The Compromise of 1877 ended a deadlock in the Presidential election of 1876 and brought Reconstruction to an end. As a result, widespread violence, fraud, corruption, gerrymandering, malapportionment, and legislation intended to disenfranchise Black voters went unchecked for 50 years. Then the Supreme Court issued two decisions gutting the Enforcement Acts, one which arose from the tense aftermath of a Louisiana gubernatorial election and the Colfax massacre, one of the bloodiest racial confrontations of the Reconstruction era. States wasted no time adopting measures that technically applied to all voters but were designed and enforced to disenfranchise Black voters: literacy tests like the one my great-grandfather took in 1902 in Alabama to be able to vote, poll taxes like the ones my father and my grandfather paid in Tennessee, and more restrictive residency requirements. Yet, we marched on. Then in August of 1965, nearly 100 years after passage of the 15th Amendment, Congress passed the most effective piece of legislation to enforce its provisions: the Voting Rights Act. As Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent in the Callais decision that put the death knell in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act by gutting what is left of it. She wrote that the Voting Rights Act was one of the most consequential and amply justified exercises of Federal legislative power in our Nation's history. Born of the literal blood of the Union soldiers and civil rights marchers, it ushered in awe-inspiring change bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling its ideals of democracy and racial equality. It has been repeatedly and overwhelmingly reauthorized by the people's Representatives in Congress, and only we have the right to say when it is no longer needed. Yet just as the backlash came in response to Reconstruction beginning with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the Roberts Court has systematically, from its ivory tower in Washington, gutted the Voting Rights Act. Essentially the Court has said that the medicine for racism in our political system has worked so let's end the treatment. However, the cancer of racism has not gone away. It has been biding its time in remission, waiting for a chance to spread. Now we see in these same States that race to pass race-neutral poll taxes, literacy tests, character tests, and gerrymander maps to pack or crack Black voters to dilute their power are now moving with all deliberate speed to do the same thing again in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. The Congressional Black Caucus will not stand idly by. As our colleague, John Lewis, said, democracy is not a state. It is an act that requires each generation to do its part to build the beloved community. Our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and some of our members themselves did their part to fight the obstacles put in our way of participation in this government by, of, and for the people, and we will fight tooth and nail to do the same so that our children and our grandchildren don't have to fight these fights. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke). Chairwoman Yvette Clarke is our fearless leader.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell), who picked up the baton from John Lewis.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) from Texas' Ninth District.

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) from Wisconsin's Fourth District.

Ms. McCLELLAN

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in strong support of H.R. 7386, the First Responder Network Authority Reauthorization Act, and I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill. On 9/11, first responders faced tremendous challenges in trying to communicate with each other and coordinate their response to the terrorist attacks. There was no dedicated network for public safety communications. In 2012, Congress fixed that problem by authorizing the creation of the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet. FirstNet has become a cornerstone of our Nation's public safety communications. It ensures that first responders, no matter where they serve, have access to a reliable, interoperable, and resilient broadband network that prioritizes public safety when it matters most. Today, that mission is more critical than ever. As natural disasters, extreme weather events, and emergencies grow more frequent and more complex, our first responders need communication capabilities supported by infrastructure they can depend on without fail. This bill takes an important step forward, on a bipartisan basis, toward that goal. It reauthorizes FirstNet for 10 years, providing certainty for the public safety community for the foreseeable future. At the same time, it strengthens oversight, transparency, and the accountability of the FirstNet Authority, ensuring that this vital network remains responsive, effective, and worthy of the trust placed in it by first responders. The bill also provides important clarity about the relationship between the board and the FirstNet Authority, ensuring that public safety officials remain at the core of decisionmaking. Importantly, it strikes the right balance: preserving speed and operational continuity while ensuring that governance keeps pace with the scale and importance of the network. Oversight and stability are not competing goals. They complement one another for the benefit of public safety. I thank Ranking Members Pallone and Matsui, Chairmen Guthrie and Hudson, and my colleague Mr. Dunn of Florida for their leadership and partnership on advancing this bill. This is a strong, bipartisan product, shaped through regular order in the Committee on Energy and Commerce with input from stakeholders. Ultimately, this legislation is grounded in a shared commitment to support those who put their lives on the line every single day. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7386, and I reserve the balance of my time.