September 9, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 143 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page H7549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    COMMEMORATING THE YEAR OF RETURN

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on a number of 
points--first of all, to acknowledge the killing and mass murder in El 
Paso, in Dayton, and in Odessa. I think it is calling upon this 
Congress not only to pray but to do, and I plan to do.
  Let me also indicate that this is the Year of Return, 400 years that 
enslaved Africans came to the United States. Millions were enslaved and 
came. From 1789 to 1865, the institution of slavery was 
constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned.
  I am glad to have been part of a historic trip to Ghana with my 
colleague and the Speaker of the House to honor the Year of Return and 
thank the Ghanan leadership for its welcoming of those of us who came 
to honor that history, although tragic with the loss of life and the 
issue of wealth being created in this Nation.
  Let me also remind our colleagues that we are glad that our neighbors 
in the Southeast survived, but I want to remind us of the devastation 
in the Bahamas. We must not let our neighbors suffer. We must rise up 
with funding. We must recognize that they are our neighbors. We must 
deal with immigration laws, and we must be receptive, Mr. Speaker, to 
helping them get back on their feet. I know this Congress and this 
House will work together when our fellow neighbors are suffering the 
way they are suffering.

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