To reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2707) to reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program, as amended.

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 bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this important legislation that will reauthorize a competitive grant program administered by the Department of Education to research, display, interpret and collect artifacts relating to the history of the Underground Railroad.

During one of the darkest eras of American history, a group of courageous Americans, both black and white as well as free and enslaved, bound together to form what would be known as the Underground Railroad. For example, the Father of our Nation, George Washington, complained in 1786 about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by a society of Quakers formed for such purposes.

The Underground Railroad was a decentralized network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North. The railroad consisted of many individuals who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives, and none of the overall operation. Amazingly, the railroad effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year. According to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.

This racially integrated movement to bring about social change has familiar heroes, such as Harriet Tubman, John Rankin and Susan B. Anthony; but there are thousands more who risked their lives to help others escape the clutches of slavery as they fled to the North.

For the slave, escaping to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant taking great risks while relying on his or her own resources. The fugitives would move at night and travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station, where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. The journey was difficult, but the determination to gain freedom was immense.

The Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program Act of 2007 would provide competitive grants to nonprofit organizations around the United States to shed light on one of the most important and courageous social movements in our history, while preserving and interpreting artifacts found from this critical era.

Moreover, this important legislation would ensure a strong public/ private partnership exists to supplement and leverage Federal resources along with funds collected at the State and local levels. Since 1999, over $15 million has been appropriated to seven different institutions. For example, in my home State of Ohio, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center has delivered highly interactive learning experiences for over 130,000 school children from around the country. This is an important effort to educate citizens across the country and around the world about the Underground Railroad movement in America.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2707 reauthorizing the activities of the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program through FY 2012.

Passed in 1998, the original amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965 authorized the Secretary of Education, in consultation and cooperation with the Secretary of the Interior, to make grants to nonprofit educational organizations established to research, display, interpret, and collect artifacts related to the history of the Underground Railroad.

I commend my colleague Representative Kucinich for his hard work on this issue and this legislation.

Since its passage, the program's centerpiece in Cincinnati--the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center--has become a nationally important cultural center and valuable education resource center, reaching more than 160,000 school-age children and their teachers who have toured the Freedom Center. The changing exhibitions as well as the pre- and post- visit teaching curriculum have offered valuable opportunities for our children to learn from and be inspired by the lessons of the history of the Underground Railroad.

I am also proud of Amistad America, an initiative based in New Haven, Ct., which has been able to receive funding from the Department of Education through The Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program. By bringing together local organization advocates, educators, and historians, the Amistad America recognizes and honors the historical and educational significance of the Freedom Schooner Amistad Ship.

In 1839, 53 Africans were illegally kidnapped from Sierra Leone and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. The captives were brought to Havana, Cuba, aboard the Portuguese vessel Tecora, where they were fraudulently classified as native-born Cuban slaves then sold to Spaniards Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez, who transferred them to the coastal cargo schooner, La Amistad.

While being transferred from Havana, Cuba, up the coast in the Amistad, the African captives revolted after 3 days and ordered the schooner to head east back to their native Africa. On the evening of the rebellion, the Amistad was secretly directed back west and up the coast of North America, where after 2 months the Africans were seized and arrested in New London, Ct.

The captives were jailed and awaited trial in New Haven, Ct. The case became historic when former President John Quincy Adams argued on behalf of the enslaved Africans before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning their freedom.

This summer the Freedom Schooner Amistad, a recreation of the original Amistad embarked from New Haven on its first transatlantic voyage to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

The journey is an opportunity to call to public attention the evils of slavery, the struggle for freedom, and the restoration of human dignity. As with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, each of these institutions remind us that even the darkest hours of our Nation's history can ultimately provide the tools for change.

Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 2707, Mr. Kucinich's resolution to reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program. I praise the initiative contained in this resolution to point out the historical, cultural, and educational legacy behind the Underground Railroad. It is through that network of tunnels and secret hiding places that many African Americans escaped slavery. As a symbol of freedom, the Underground Railroad deserves greater recognition and appreciation, regrettably of its artifacts and secrets remain hidden and lost.

I have long believed in and fought for more and better education of African American history. Well, an important part of that history is contained in the struggle for freedom that characterized the slave experience. Some would have us believe that slaves passively accepted their captivity in the plantations in the South. The truth is there was an active resistance to slavery; which included periodic uprisings and constant efforts to escape. The full role and extent of the Underground Railroad has yet to be discovered and remains unknown. The legislation authorizes the Secretary of Education to sponsor studies and make grants for programs that promote knowledge of the Underground Railroad.

With the resources and technology available today, we owe it to the history of African Americans and the history of the United States to study, preserve, and make available to all the hidden secrets of the Underground Railroad. Secret routes and safe houses still remain unknown. Secrets that may remain buried in our backyards.

The establishment of this facility would allow significant missing pieces in African American history to be properly studied and commemorated.

Through the passage of this legislation, the work of the National Park Service and its study of the phenomenon known as the Underground Railroad will be continued. Established by Congress in 1990, the National Park Service has made major progress in learning more about the secret routes and the processes used in escorting these fugitive slaves to freedom. The story is far from well enough known, and the study far from complete. Let us as members of the 110th Congress exhibit the same respect and appreciation of the Underground Railroad as was shown in 1990.

Please join me in support of H.R. 2707, as we move further in understanding the whole story and celebrating the legacy of the Underground Railroad.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2707 which acknowledges the necessity to continue funding the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program. Reflecting upon the nearly four hundred years of slavery, another century and a half of severe violations of American civil rights and continued hardship experienced by minorities everywhere, I feel that this measure warrants our support. The time has come for tolerance and understanding to triumph over racism and bigotry.

Our society is one that was formed by those who sought and dared to believe in freedom. Though these individuals committed transgressions of their own, they set the cornerstone for a union of states based on eminent documents and progressive ideals. Just to whom the notions of liberty, prosperity and happiness applied, would have to be settled in an undiplomatic nature, yet thankfully and virtuously the rights of all men prevailed. Before the Compromise of 1820 was agreed upon, a network now known as the Underground Railroad began to take form between those that wanted to gain and to give the ability to live freely.

Now legally armed with the rights and privileges endowed to all men and women, we find our society struggling to remain committed to not only remembering the plight of those who struggled to gain their freedom but what freedom explicitly implies. The struggle of protecting one's civil rights and the capability to act in one's best interests now faces our nation. We have developed as a people but must not stop or even slow our progression forward. The themes of our Founding Fathers must ring in our ears and our souls as loudly today as they did through the fights for our national and personal independence.

This legislation provides continued support for organizations such as the National Underground Freedom Center and the magnificent professionals who are dedicated to improving our community through education. I would like to thank my colleagues for their time and continued support for this institution of which I am proud to have been an original co-sponsor of its founding legislation back in 1999. This leg insures that The Underground Freedom Center and other institutions of the like will continue to educate and inspire generations to come.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2707, Mr. Kucinich's resolution to reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program. I praise the initiative contained in this resolution to point out the historical, cultural, and educational legacy behind the Underground Railroad. It is through that network of tunnels and secret hiding places that many African Americans escaped slavery. As a symbol of freedom, the Underground Railroad deserves greater recognition and appreciation; regrettably many of its artifacts and secrets remain hidden and lost.

I have long believed in and fought for more and better education of African American history. Well, an important part of that history is contained in the struggle for freedom that characterized the slave experience. Some would have us believe that slaves passively accepted their captivity in the plantations in the South. The truth is there was an active resistance to slavery; which included periodic uprisings and constant efforts to escape. The full role and extent of the Underground Railroad has yet to be discovered and remains unknown. The legislation authorizes the Secretary of Education to sponsor studies and make grants for programs that promote knowledge of the Underground Railroad.

With the resources and technology available today, we owe it to the history of African Americans and the history of the United States to study, preserve, and make available to all the hidden secrets of the Underground Railroad. Secret routes and safehouses still remain unknown--secrets that may remain buried in our backyards.

The establishment of this facility would allow significant missing pieces in African American history to be properly studied and commemorated.

Through the passage of this legislation, the work of the National Park Service and its study of the phenomenon known as the Underground Railroad will be continued. Established by Congress in 1990, the National Park Service has made major progress in learning more about the secret routes and the processes used in escorting these fugitive slaves to freedom.